KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket gave up early gains to close down and turnover was extremely light ahead of the long holiday weekend.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 28.793 points, or 1.026 per cent, at 2778.546. Turnover was worth just $51.59 million.
The market weakened during the day as Asian markets melted down again. During the New Zealand session Japan's Nikkei average slid more than 7 per cent as Sony Corp tumbled on a profit warning. The Australian market was down 3.4 per cent in afternoon trading.
"One minute we were up and the next we were down," said Stephen Wright at ASB Securities.
He said as the afternoon wore on weakness in foreign markets dragged on the local market. Trading was thin ahead of the Labour Day holiday on Monday.
Telecom bucked the trend, rising 5c to 231. NZOG was also up 4c at 122 ahead of its annual meeting next week.
Shares in stock market operator NZX rose 11c to 604 after the company posted a 20 per cent increase in net profit.
Fletcher Building fell 20c to 580 and Contact Energy fell 17c to 685.
NZ Refining Co was up 10c to 610 after it said its refinery had been running at near full production.
Port of Tauranga was unchanged at 655 after reporting a strong first quarter at its annual meeting yesterday.
Air NZ was unchanged at 86 after saying passenger numbers were down on Tasman and Pacific routes in September.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 9c to 301 and the appliance stock rose 1c to 133.
Guinness Peat Group fell 3c to 95 and Sanford fell 20c to 530. Ryman fell 2c to 153. TrustPower rose 11c to 735 and Ebos rose 10c to 435. The Warehouse rose 10c to 400.
In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 2 per cent to 8691.25, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.3 per cent to 908.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.7 per cent at 1603.91.
The US market was led by a bounce in energy and health care stocks after oil recovered from a 16-month trough and top pharmaceutical companies posted reassuring earnings.
The session was typical of the recent volatility gripping Wall Street, with stocks swinging in a 7 per cent range and the day's final direction only becoming clear in the last minutes of trading.
- NZPA