NZ sharemarket little changed

The New Zealand sharemarket was little changed today even though the Australian market pushed higher in defiance of a lacklustre performance by the United States market.

The Japanese market surged when export stocks rallied after the Bank of Japan intervened to knock the yen lower.

The focus in this market is on tomorrow's Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) monetary policy statement and the next Fonterra internet auction. A strong gold price is also helping gold miners.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed down 2.236 points, or 0.07 per cent, at 3195.28.

OceanaGold rose 16c, or 3.14 per cent, to 525. Gold surged more than 2 per cent to a record as investors turned to the precious metal as a safe haven asset, New Zealand Mint head bullion trader Mike O'Kane said.

"There is still a lot of uncertainty and nervousness about financial markets and the need for further government bailouts. This has caused the gold price to go through the roof - causing the biggest one day gain in four months," he said.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances rose 2c to 58 after the company said it had developed revolutionary new technology for refrigerators.

A number of stocks went ex-dividend today, including Steel & Tube, Port of Tauranga, Opus, NZOG and Freightways.

Tower shares were unchanged on 185, after the company advised it had entered into an agreement that resolved all disputes between Tower Insurance and ANZ National Bank. The agreement would enable Tower to continue to renew insurance policies sold through ANZ National.

Telecom was unchanged at 206, Fletcher Building fell 13c to 835 and Nuplex fell 5c to 338.

SkyCity rose 2c to 288, Contact Energy rose 3c to 578 and Auckland Airport rose 1c to 209. The Warehouse rose 1c to 374 and Hallenstein Glasson rose 1c to 396.

Mainfreight fell 9c to 715.

Allied Farmers was little changed at 2.8c after saying it has reduced debt owned to Westpac to below $2 million.

In the United States, stocks were little changed after promising data from the retail sector fed recent optimism that the economic recovery, while slow, is proceeding.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.2 per cent to 10,526.49, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 0.1 per cent to 1121.10, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.2 per cent to 2289.77.

- NZPA