KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket toppled back into negative territory today, erasing half of Friday's 2 per cent bounce.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index fell 1.15 per cent or 36.47 points to 3121.44 on a sluggish $69 million turnover.
A lack of news, a holiday on Friday in the US and a negative lead from Australia were all thought to have weighed on the index.
"What really makes today stand apart from other days is the turnover is noticeably very low," First NZ Capital's research manager Barry Lindsay said.
The leaders all fared badly with Telecom down 3c to 338, Fletcher Building down 20c to 622, Contact down 20c to 760, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare down 2c to 229.
Others included Auckland Airport down 4c to 187, Mainfreight down 11c to 629 on low turnover, and the Warehouse down 5c to 395.
But Friday's bargain hunters were still hanging around for selected stocks - Freightways was up 7c to 300, Hallenstein Glasson picked up 4c to 260, Abano up 6c to 455, and NZ Refining up 10c to 700.
Pumpkin Patch gained 4c to 152, "entirely due to Jan Cameron's disclosure" on Friday of her 6.3 per cent stake, Mr Lindsay said.
Sky City also gained 2c to 317 against the broadly negative market, continuing its progress from a 14c recovery on Friday. Mr Lindsay said the casino operator appeared to be "finding a floor".
Dual-listed stocks were mixed, with Westpac down 50c to 2500 but ANZ up 13c to 2433, and Nuplex up 15c to 505.
At mid-afternoon, Australian shares were down 2 per cent as resource firms lost ground on weaker metals prices, and an earnings downgrade at GPT Group hit property shares.
Meanwhile, Asian stocks were defying the US and Europe's bear market, snapping a six-day losing streak on bargain hunting and optimism that China's banking sector has thrived.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index gained 1.5 per cent, and Japan's Nikkei share average was up 0.9 per cent, set to break a string of 11 days of losses, the longest streak of declines since 1954.
- NZPA