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New Zealand shares declined today as blue chip stocks were sold lower on reasonable volume, with the flow of financial results and other news drying up.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index closed down 0.2 per cent, or 6.1 points, at 4053.86 on turnover totalling $127.2 million.
"There's been some quite good volume around in the last week or so, and some of it was related to the MSCI changes which happened late last week, and there's a bit of a tidy-up of that," said Campbell Stuart of UBS.
Telecom and Fletcher Building were among stocks featuring in Friday's exceptionally heavy trading around the re-ratings of MSCI indexes, which guide international investment.
Among the top three stocks, Telecom was down 3c at 435, Fletcher Building fell 16c to 1149 and Contact Energy lost 8c to 847.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 2c at 318, and F&P Appliances lost 5c to 340.
Casino company Sky City rebounded during the afternoon to close up 15c at 495, up from an earlier low of 480. Sky City's board is meeting at the end of this week and will consider any bids received for the business.
Sky TV was up 2c at 557, Auckland Airport rose 2c to 283, and Vector was down a cent at 234.
The Warehouse was up 5c at a four-month high of 640 following November's High Court reversal of the Commerce Commission prohibition on takeovers by Woolworths or Foodstuffs.
Mainfreight was down 3c at 707, Nuplex fell 5c to 710, Hallenstein Glasson lost 20c to 400, and Sanford fell 4c to 411.
Freightways was up 7c at 380, Hellaby rose 16c to 251, Infratil was up 2c at 284, and ING Medical Property was up 4c at 128.
Takeover target Abano Healthcare surged 18c to 488. The company, for which 19.9 per cent owner Masthead is bidding 500c a share for 51 per cent, said yesterday it expected a higher second half after it reported a 35 per cent lift in first half profit.
Dual-listed stocks were mixed, with ANZ down 75c at 3155, AMP up 15c at 1170, Telstra down 11c at 532, and Lion Nathan steady at 1070.
- NZPA