KEY POINTS:
Early losses on the New Zealand sharemarket accelerated during the day, despite a healthy showing on other markets and a nearly 1 per cent rise for Telecom.
The NZSX-50 index closed down 30.54 points, or 0.8 per cent, at 4026.95 on light turnover worth $103 million. Falls outnumbered rises 33 to 69.
"With the exception of Telecom, the market looked generally pretty weak through all stocks, and I suspect that's just a view being taken on the New Zealand market relative to offshore markets," said Philip Hunter of First NZ Capital.
"There were no particular stock-specific news. It just looks like a `sell New Zealand' day from an offshore perspective."
Telecom was up 4c at 442, but other blue chips were negative. Contact Energy was down 16c at 819, Fletcher Building fell 6c to 1133, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 5c at 330, and bucking the trend was F&P Appliances, up a cent at 340.
Sky City and Sky TV both lost 5c, to 480 and 560 respectively. Auckland Airport led the losses with its fall of 3.8 per cent, or 11c, to 279.
The Warehouse dropped 20c to 636, Air New Zealand was down 2c at 183, Vector fell 6c to 240, Infratil fell 10c to 285, and exporter Rakon lost 6c to 398 as the New Zealand dollar hit its highest since July.
Freightways lost 8c to 370, and Mainfreight was down 2c at 707.
On the rise were Ryman, up 3c at 211, NZX, up 5c at 915, Guocoleisure, up 5c at 112, Cavalier, up 5c at 305, and Hellaby, up 5c at 245.
The morning's high flying Port of Tauranga, which had been up 18c to 695, closed up 2c at 679.
Restaurant Brands lost 2c to 90c after it reported a third quarter increase in sales of 1.9 per cent to $69 million, with KFC performing well while Pizza Hut continued to drag.
Dual-listed stocks were mixed, with ANZ down 3c at 3187, Westpac up 73c at 3355 after the listing of its fund management arm BT, APN was down 5c at 595, and Lion Nathan was up 7c at 1067.
- NZPA