KEY POINTS:
Sky City continued to retreat when the market opened today after hitting a record on Friday on news the casino operator could become a takeover target.
The company said it had received an indicative and confidential approach from a party interested in acquiring all its shares at a premium to the market price, but there was no guarantee the bid would proceed.
That pushed Sky City shares to a record high during Friday of 556, before they closed up 22 per cent, or 95c, at 528 on turnover totalling $96.8m.
The shares eased a little further back from that record in early trade today, dropping 10c early to 518.
No 2 stock Fletcher Building also pulled back early today after a bullish end to the week, dropping 27c to 1253.
On Friday Fletcher gained 3 per cent, or 40c, after successfully raising US$235m ($323m) in the US private placement debt market.
Top stock Telecom was down 1c early today to 429, adding to the 13c it lost on Friday.
The performance of Sky City, Fletcher and Telecom was a key factor in dragging the sharemarket down early, with the benchmark NZSX-50 index easing 4.59 points to 4226.57 at 10.15am today.
The Warehouse also took a big drop early, losing 29c to 579, but that was on the sale of only 400 shares.
Other major shares to lose ground early today were Sky TV, off 7c to 545, Auckland International Airport down 2c to 322, and Air New Zealand down 2c to 220.
Among shares to rise early were Cavalier, up 5c to 335, Fisher & Paykel Appliances up 2c to 359, Freightways up 2c to 370, Hellaby Holdings up 5c to 295, Mainfreight up 6c to 700, and Restaurant Brands up 2c to 87.
The soft start to the week's trading in this country came despite a strong end to last week in the US.
US stocks rose on Friday after robust results from software maker Oracle Corp, while bank and other rate-sensitive stocks were snapped up as investors built on the euphoria that followed the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest-rate cut last Tuesday.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.39 per cent on Friday to end at 13,820.19. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 0.46 per cent, to finish at 1525.75. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.64 per cent, to close at 2671.22.
For the week, the Dow was up 2.8 per cent, while the S&P 500 also gained 2.8 per cent and the Nasdaq rose 2.7 per cent. For the Dow and S&P the weekly performance was the best since March.
- NZPA
