KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket slipped in early trade and kept sliding gently through the first day's trading for 2008, as record high oil prices and weak US economic data battered Wall Street.
Shortly after opening following the two-day New Year's holiday, the benchmark NZSX-50 index fell 5.8 points, then fell
again in the afternoon to finish the day 7.45 points down at 4033.93 - 0.18 per cent lower than at the end of 2008.
This was nothing to write home about considering it finished 2008 at 4041 points, 300 points shy of its record high in May, and down 0.3 per cent for the year - one of the world's 10 worst-performed benchmark indices.
Abano Healthcare jumped from its 6-1/2-year high of 509, lifting 1c in very thin volume, though one parcel of 1000 shares sold at 513 ahead of today's announcement that directors are rejecting a $5.20/share takeover offer from Crescent Capital Partners Ltd.
An independent adviser put a valuation range of $5.15 to $5.90, with a mid-point of $5.52, on the company.
There were another 25 rises and 53 falls among the 117 shares traded. The top volume traded, 7.6 million Telecom shares valued at $33.1 million, saw a 1c fall in value to 434c a share.
Fletcher Building was down 10c in early trading at 1140, but returned to 1150 with a big sale of 219,039 shares. The total trade of 560,000 shares in this company notched up the second largest traded value - $6.44 million.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 4c to 345 as $1.22 million worth of shares were traded.
Relatively large numbers of ICPbio shares (2.07 million) and warrants (1.9 million) changed hands, with a drop in value of 0.6c to 4.1 for the shares.
Freightways slumped 9c to 365, Kiwi Income Property Trust fell 2c to 132, and Ryman Healthcare was down 3c at 203.
Among the top-50 stocks, Rakon was up 4c at 397, Air New Zealand was steady at 188, and Vector rose 6c to 226.
Hallenstein Glasson fell 4c in early trade but finished the day up 2c at 392.
Rural services company PGG Wrightson lifted 1c to 222 after announcing a 2.5 million share on-market buyback for its chief executive's share incentive scheme.
Little is expected in terms of corporate news this week.
In the United States, stocks fell sharply when markets reopened on Wednesday, with the Dow slumping about 2 per cent to dip below the 13,000 level, after US manufacturing data showed signs of contraction and oil hit US$100 ($131) a barrel, raising the possibility of a recession in 2008.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 220.86 points, or 1.67 per cent, to close unofficially at 13,043.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index unofficially finished off 21.19 points, or 1.44 per cent, at 1447.17. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 42.65 points, or 1.61 per cent, for an unofficial finish at 2609.63.
- NZPA
