KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket was down again after yesterday's brief and mild interruption of an eight-day losing streak.
On Wall Street, US shares dipped in choppy trade as weak economic data and a bleak outlook from delivery giant UPS darkened the mood ahead of a Federal Reserve decision on interest rates.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index, which yesterday eked out an 11-point gain, was down 6.5 points to 3291 at 10.20am. Top stock Telecom was down another 3c to 367 after losing 7c yesterday. Fletcher Building, down 16c yesterday, was today up 8c to 650 while, Contact Energy, which yesterday jumped 16c on a renewed bid for majority owner Origin Energy from British gas producer BG Group, was up another 1c to 840.
BG made a hostile A$15.50 ($19.75) per share bid for Origin Energy directly to Origin shareholders today, after Origin's board rejected the bid last month as too low.
Origin owns 51 per cent of Contact, but BG is understood to not want Contact and a sale of the stake may trigger a full takeover of the New Zealand company.
NZ Oil & Gas was up 6c to 167 as was Mainfreight, to $670.
Vector was down 3c to 201 as was Sky City to 331.
Lyttelton Port was down 7c to 223 on light turnover while retailer Briscoe was down 3c to 106.
* * *
In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 32.89 points (0.28 per cent) to 11,809.47 and the Nasdaq composite shed 17.46 points (0.73 per cent) to 2368.28, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 3.47 points (0.26 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1314.53.
- NZPA