NZ shares claw back up after dip

The New Zealand sharemarket started the day with a dip but within a few minutes had clawed its way back to even, as Fletcher Building turned positive from an early deficit.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 1.51 points to 3228.76, having been down around 3221 a few minutes earlier.

After being down 3c in the first few minutes, Fletcher Building shares reversed direction to a gain of 5c at $8.08.

Sky City was up 2c to $3.33, Property for Industry gained 2c to $1.20, Nuplex was up 2c to $3.08, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare added 2c to $3.32.

Stocks losing ground early included Cavalier Corp, down 5c to $2.80, Infratil 3c to $1.65, Port of Tauranga 3c to $7.02, ING Medical Properties 2c to $1.17, Pike River Coal 2c to $1.04 and Restaurant Brands 2c to $1.77.

Telecom was up 1c to $2.47, while Contact Energy edged down 1c to $6.08.

The rapid decline of the New Zealand dollar in the previous 24 hours, from US74c to US72c, appeared to be doing little to arouse investors' interests in export-dominated companies in the wake of sharp losses on world markets.

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In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average suffered its worst drop of 2010 due to fears that China's curbs on bank lending might jeopardise the global recovery, while IBM's outlook sparked caution about the technology sector.

Based on the preliminary data, the Dow fell 1.1 per cent to end unofficially at 10,603.15, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1.1 per cent to 1138.04, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.3 per cent to 2291.25.

- NZPA