NZ market closes 17 points down

The New Zealand sharemarket was little changed for most of today's session but slipped to close lower on a day in which markets in Asia were weak.

The benchmark NZX-50 index ended down 17.508 points, or 0.53 per cent, at 3287.461 as the Australian market traded down 1 per cent. Turnover was worth $97.11 million. There were 35 rises and 53 falls among the 118 stocks traded.

Fletcher Building fell 9c to 843 after announcing late in the session that 120 jobs would go in its Australian insulation business due to a change in a government home insulation scheme.

Telecom rose 3c to 218 and Nuplex rose 3c to 326.

Allied Farmers was a feature of the session, rising 1.4c to 8.3 after announcing property sales netted the company $3.4 million.

"Although it is not a huge amount of money it is slightly positive that they are managing to sell some of the properties," Grant Williamson at Hamilton, Hindin, Greene said.

He said there was steady buying in Vector, which rose 2c to 215, and SkyCity, which closed up 1c at 323.

Contact Energy fell 6c to 618, though brokers said there was little new in March operational data released by the company.

NZ Refining rose 1c to 381 on a day that it withstood a challenge from a shareholder relating to processing arrangements with oil company customers.

Turners Auctions, which held its annual meeting today, was unchanged at 146.

NZX fell 2c to 180, Mainfreight fell 5c to 660, TrustPower fell 2c to 745 and Air NZ fell 1c to 137. SkyTV fell 2c to 510.

Hellaby rose 2c to 160, APN News rose 2c to 160 and The Warehouse rose 1c to 382.

In the United States, stocks finished little changed as disappointing outlooks from healthcare companies offset strong earnings from Morgan Stanley and Apple Inc.

Healthcare stocks took a beating after both Abbott Laboratories and Gilead Sciences Inc cut profit forecasts. Both Abbott and Gilead cited the impact of costs from US healthcare reform in their outlooks.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 0.1 per cent to 11,124.92, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index dipped 0.1 per cent to 1205.94, and the Nasdaq Composite Index inched up 0.2 per cent to 2504.61.

- NZPA