Sharemarket lower as Asian markets drop

The New Zealand sharemarket gave up early gains to close down today as Asian markets headed lower.

The 5.4 per cent drop in China's market at midday was hard to ignore even though local news was positive with the National Bank Business Outlook survey recording a big increase in confidence.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed down 11.339 points, or 0.365 per cent, at 3098.003.

Turnover was worth $107 million, of which $32.5m. There were 45 rises and 44 falls among the 119 stocks traded.

The standout was Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group, which lifted 5.2 per cent to 84 after reported a half year loss of £22 million ($53 million).

Mr Williamson said the result, while disappointing, was better than expected.

The leading shares reflected the negative sentiment, with Fletcher Building down 16c to $7.86 and Contact down 15c to $6.25.

Telecom fell 4c to $2.75 on a day in which the Commerce Commission opened an investigation into loyalty offers made by Telecom's wholesale business unit. Mr Williamson said the news did not have much impact on the share price.

Auckland Airport fell 3c to $1.73, Tourism Holdings fell 1c to 54c and NZX fell 15c to $7.60. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare fell 7c to $3.25 but the appliances stock was unchanged at 80c.

Hellaby rose 18c to $1.35, Hallenstein Glasson rose 5c to $2.80 and Air NZ rose 1c to $1.25.

Pyne Gould Corp rose 28c to $1.42. The company's expectation that a capital raising will be fully underwritten is being viewed positively, though the company moved to clarify that shareholder George Kerr is not an underwriter.

In the United States, stocks mostly slipped on Friday (local time) after a weak consumer sentiment report offset positive news from bellwethers Dell Inc and Intel Corp.

Support from the two companies, however, let the Nasdaq eke out a tiny gain.

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 0.4 per cent to end at 9544.20, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost only 0.2 per cent to 1028.93, while the Nasdaq Composite Index inched up 0.1 per cent to close at 2028.77.

For the week, the Dow advanced 0.4 per cent, while the S&P 500 gained 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq rose 0.4 per cent.

- NZPA