NZ sharemarket takes a tumble

The New Zealand sharemarket fell today along with markets in Asia after investors took profits in the United States when fraud charges were laid against Goldman Sachs and earnings reports disappointed.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed down 29.111 points, or 0.879 per cent, at 3282.198. It reached a 19-month intraday high around 3349 points on Thursday.

Turnover was worth $73.9 million. There were 21 rises and 62 falls among the 120 stocks traded.

"Global markets fell on the Goldman Sachs story and that's really been the primary driver. The market has been looking for an excuse to sell off and this has been a pretty good one," said James Lee, head of wholesale equities at First NZ Capital.

Fletcher Building shares, which reached a six-month high 856 last Thursday, fell 7c to 842, while Telecom fell 1c to 217 and Contact Energy fell 2c to 636.

"Telecom continues to ebb and flow around the 215 to 222 mark," Mr Lee said.

Air NZ fell 4c to 137 on a day in which Qantas said disruption on European routes from the volcanic ash cloud was costing it A$1.5 million a day. Mr Lee said the bulk of Air NZ's business was domestic and it had fewer planes affected.

"We would expect Air NZ to be a fraction of that," he said.

Tourism Holdings fell 3c to 94. Infratil, which owns two airports in the United Kingdom, fell 1c to 176.

Nuplex fell 14c to 312. Mr Lee estimated the company has lost $80 million in market capitalisation since the Securities Commission said it was filing civil proceedings for non-compliance with continuous disclosure requirements. The company is vigorously defending the charges.

Listed industrial property investor Property for Industry was unchanged at 116 after reporting first quarter rentals were 3.2 per cent higher than a year earlier.

NZOG fell 5c to 151 on confirmation the Hoki-1 exploration well found nothing. OceanaGold fell 11c to 349.

SkyTV fell 7c to 504. Tower fell 3c to 200 and SkyCity fell 5c to 320.

Michael Hill rose 1c to 74, Mainfreight rose 1c to 653 and Cavalier rose 1c to 273.

In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average ended Friday down 1.1 per cent at 11,018.66, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1.6 per cent at 1192.14, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.4 per cent at 2481.26.

After a rally that lasted six straight weeks, stocks were down as Google Inc, Bank of America Corp and General Electric Co reported quarterly results that fell short of heightened expectations.

Amid the largest trading volume since last May, Goldman Sachs fell 13 per cent to US$160.89 per share in its worst one-day drop since January 2009.

The fall was on a volume of more than 100 million shares after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the Wall Street firm with fraud over its handling of a debt product tied to subprime mortgages.

- NZPA