KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket slipped out of gear today, despite a positive day on other world bourses.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index fell 10.83 points to 4215.88, reversing a mildly positive start to the day.
"There's just a complete lack of conviction in our market," ASB Securities head of advisory Stephen Wright noted.
On Friday the local market dropped 0.9 per cent ahead of a US market bounce on Friday night which sent the Dow Jones index up 0.99 per cent.
Today it ignored overseas hopes that the US would cut interest rates on Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei had jumped 1.1 per cent by early afternoon and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index was within easy reach of its record high set on October 15.
But in New Zealand there was a lack of corporate news and volume was slim.
Mr Wright suggested the recent popularity of bond issues had "sucked oxygen" out of the equities market, and talk of a rates rise in Australia was a negative for stocks with exposure there.
Telecom led the market down, slipping 4c to 427 ahead of its first quarter results on Friday.
Contact Energy regained 7c to 912 after a 19c fall last Friday when the company said this year's earnings would be flat due to high gas prices and low wholesale power prices.
Sky City fell 2c to 538 after the company said last week that it was putting the sale of its Adelaide casino on hold while bidders did due diligence.
NZX slipped 5c to 945 after reporting on Friday a 49 per cent rise in third quarter net profit to $2.29m which sent the share p rice up 19c.
Auckland Airport edged up a cent to 307, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was flat at 328, but F&P Appliances added 6c to 351, and NZ Oil & Gas was up 2c at 106.
Air NZ fell 4c at 208, and Fletcher Building was off 10c at 1220. An Australian building industry counterpart, Boral, today forecast lower earnings if the US housing market remained soft and the Australia dollar strong.
PGG Wrightson fell 3c to 200 and Ebos Group gained a cent to 521 after annual meetings today.
Among dual-listed stocks, ANZ rose 35c at 3590, Westpac rose 90c to 3560, and Lion Nathan gained 15c to 1098.
- NZPA