KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket had a negative start to the month, following a mixed session on Wall Street on Friday.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 6.28 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 4228.01 on turnover valued at $108.5 million. Falls outnumbered rises 52 to 36.
"The market's still looking for direction -- there's reasonable activity, and reasonable turnover, and quite broad-based," Don Lewthwaite of First NZ Capital said.
"We saw Wall Street being very volatile on Friday and so that's given us no real steer about how overseas markets feel about the world."
After leading the market up with an 11c rise on Friday in the wake of the appointment of BT's Paul Reynolds as chief executive officer, Telecom was down 6c at 453 early today.
Fletcher Building was flat at 1235 while Contact Energy rose 9c to 910. With a still stronger New Zealand dollar, manufacturing exporters Fisher & Paykel Appliances and F&P Healthcare were both lower, at 347 and 334 respectively.
Auckland Airport was steady at 328 after announcing a rise in airline charges, to criticism from the airline industry and Air New Zealand.
"Their aeronautical charges were broadly in line with what the market was expecting," Mr Lewthwaite said.
Air NZ, which ended last week in recovery mode with a 6c gain as the market absorbed the placement of a 4.2 per cent stake by Qantas on Wednesday, fell 4c to 260.
The Warehouse was up 3c at 610, having crept ahead 4c on Friday after Foodstuffs said it would appeal a competition regulator's ban on its takeover offer.
Sky City fell a further 8c to 500, Sky TV was off a cent at 562, Vector rose a cent to 273, NZ Refining gained 33c to 783, and Ryman Healthcare was up 5c at 227.
Infratil was up 3c at 322, TrustPower gained 5c to 845, and Port of Tauranga was also up 5c, at 709.
Australia's benchmark index was down 0.2 per cent at 6262.8, while Japan's Nikkei average was down 0.1 per cent after the tankan survey showed corporate sentiment steady as expected.
In the final US session of last week, stocks fell as banks and brokers retreated on concerns about the impact of tightening credit on takeovers and the subprime mortgage industry.
Early gains evaporated as oil rose to US$71 a barrel and investors booked profits before the quarter's end and the July 4 holiday week. That offset data pointing to moderating inflation and economic growth.
- NZPA