Sharemarket starts week in decline

Photo / Paul Estcourt

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week in decline, with key stock Telecom falling further away from the three-month high reached on Thursday.

After peaking at 2.11c on Thursday, Telecom shares eased to close at $2.03c on Friday after the company reported a 4.5 per cent fall in its bottom line net profit to $380 million, with revenue down 6.5 per cent to $5.27 billion.

In early trade today, Telecom shares fell a further 4c to $1.99c.

Among other top stocks, Fletcher Building shares were down 5c in the first few minutes after the market opened to $7.25c, but recovered to be unchanged at $7.30c. Contact Energy shares lost 3c to $5.75c.

With investors chewing over inconclusive election results across the Tasman, the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 9.86 points to 2990.54 around 10.20am today, having closed down 29.4 points on Friday as New Zealand followed the lead of weak offshore markets

Port of Tauranga dropped 4c to $6.70c, NZ Oil & Gas was down 2c to $1.19c, Steel & Tube dropped 2c to $2.20c, and Restaurant Brands fell 2c to $2.48c.

The dual-listed banks had contrasting fortunes early with ANZ down 50c to 2800 and Westpac up 16c to 2851.

In the United States, stocks fell for a second straight week on persistent concerns the recovery has tapered off.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.6 per cent to 10,213.62, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off 0.4 per cent to 1071.69, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.04 per cent to 2179.76.

For the week, the S&P 500 was down 0.7 per cent, the Dow slipped 0.9 per cent, while the Nasdaq gained 0.3 per cent. It was the second week of declines for the S&P and the Dow.

- NZPA