KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket touched a year-low today as rising oil and gold prices indicated a flight to safety.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index got down to a low of 3883. 76 , levels not seen since December 2006, following a sharp drop in US stocks.
The index closed down 0.4 per cent or 16.23 points to 3912.17. Falls outnumbered rises 64 to 41 on turnover worth $104 million.
Nigel Scott, a retail equities adviser with ABN Amro Craigs, said the new low was no surprise, given the market here had been drifting for a couple of months and the continuing negative offshore commentary.
"Most markets are easing and that basically says it's sentiment-driven here at this stage and liquidity is an issue at this time of the year."
Telecom was one of the few stocks to rise today, up 3c to 427, but other blue-chips fell, including Contact Energy by 13c to 816.
Fletcher Building continued to fall, down 24c today to 1083. Mr Scott said this was likely due to global growth sentiment rather than the company itself.
"You know Fletcher's has north of $1 billion's worth of work in the in-tray anyway, so it's very much a global and sector sentiment versus possibly the actuals at this point in time."
Sky City was down 7c to 426, below levels in September when the company revealed a party has expressed interest in buying the company.
"Nothing further's come out and last year there were a lot of people who entered the stock with the view of some corporate action and may well be that you're seeing a bit of that tailing off."
Among the retailers, Hallenstein Glasson was off 10c to 391 on light volume, Pumpkin Patch was down 6c to 247 and the Warehouse was off 3c to 557.
Elsewhere, Mainfreight fell 13c to 631, Auckland Airport eased 2c to 271, Nuplex put on 10c to 690, Cavalier gained 8c to 280 and Sanford rose 8c to 408.
Skellerup closed a cent down to 90, after which the company announced Sir Selwyn Cushing would succeed retired chairman Keith Smith.
In late afternoon trade , Australian shares fell for a third consecutive day, down 0.75 per cent on US growth concerns. But it was an improvement from a 1.5 per cent decline earlier in the day, supported by a surge in gold prices.
On Wall St, the Dow Jones fell 1.86 per cent after a warning from telco AT&T about softness in its consumer business raised more fears about recession.
In addition, Countrywide Financial shares plummeted amid speculation the No 1 mortgage lender may file for bankruptcy. Its shares fell 27.4 per cent in its steepest decline since the stock market crash of 1987.
- NZPA