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The sharemarket opened weaker today in response to a beating taken by US stocks on Wall Street overnight.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed was down 25 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 3622 at 10.20am.
Market leader Telecom was off 7c to 388 while third-ranked Fletcher Building lost another 10c. It fell 25c yesterday on concerns about its US operations.
No 2 stock Contact Energy, which yesterday gained 15c on hopes a new controlling owner has been lined up, was down 5c to 895.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 2c to 278 after reporting a 30 per cent fall in its annual profit which it blamed on the weak US dollar.
The company today said that continuing strong growth in sales of its respiratory, acute care and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) products contributed to the record operating revenue.
Nuplex caught some of the chill from Fletcher Building, and was down 11c to 635 while Steel & Tube was up 5c to 315.
Air NZ, facing a strike from its engineers, was down 1c to 115.
Infratil was down 3c to 227, having lost 5c yesterday after the infrastructure investor reported an annual net loss of $1.7m, compared with a profit of $68.2m last year, due to a turnaround in accounting revaluations. Operating surplus before tax rose 131 per cent to $87.8m.
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In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 193.54 points (1.49 per cent) to 12,834.62 at the closing bell, a day after finishing above a key level of 13,000.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite slumped 23.83 points (0.95 per cent) to 2492.26 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index retreated 12.69 points (0.89 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1413.94.
- NZPA