KEY POINTS:
New Zealand shares whiled away the start of a holiday-shortened week, with little news aside from a fall in business confidence to provide direction.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 4.23 points at 4180.47. Turnover was $98.1 million.
"It's school holiday mode and quite a few people are away, so the news flow is pretty minimal from a corporate point of view," said David Price of Forsyth Barr.
This morning's Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion may add to pressure on the Reserve Bank of NZ to raise rates again after revealing ongoing inflationary pressures in the economy.
Businesses were also more gloomy about general business conditions, although they were more positive about their own situation.
The index was hovering below record highs struck in February but was unlikely to forge much higher.
"I think we're heading into what will be quite a difficult time, and under that sort of guise it's pretty hard to see the market performing particularly well," Mr Price said.
Top stock Telecom fell 5c to 475. A wire agency report suggested the payout from the $2.24 billion sale of its Yellow Pages unit last month may be as little as $500m as it paid to invest in its Australian network.
Second-ranked Fletcher Building rose a cent to 1150, Contact Energy fell a cent to 927, and fellow energy stock Vector rose 2c to 298.
Among other blue chips, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 2c to 371, F&P Appliances rose 3c to 370, and Sky TV rose 4c to 580.
Air New Zealand fell 3c to 234, Auckland Airport lost a cent to 240, and Tourism Holdings lost 2c to 225.
Mainfreight was flat at 760 and Freightways was down a cent at 438.
Technology company Rakon fell 8c to 490. The company raised $22 million after most shareholders took up new shares at 406 each.
Shares in takeover target Summit Resources hit a record high 620 before a trading halt pending an announcement. The mining company ended up 21c at 606.
Dual-listed stocks had a stronger day, with the Australian indexes hitting fresh record highs. AMP was up 13c at 1216, ANZ rose 36c to 3396, Westpac was up 20c to 2980, and Telstra gained 17c to 547.
- NZPA