KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket clawed back some of its losses today, but remained in the red as it followed the lead of the Australian market.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index fell 0.3 per cent, or 11.46 points, to 3557.47, having gained 52.3 points yesterday.
The index closed 20 points above today's
session low. Volume totalled $98.3 million.
"Volumes certainly have been quite good for a Friday, just a generally negative tone," James Smalley of Hamilton Hindin Greene said.
Having gained more than 60c in the past three days, Contact Energy rose a further 2c to 912, recovering from the day's low of 895.
Early this week, Contact announced it had bought two gas turbine units to be fired up during periods of peak electricity demand.
Top stock Telecom was also up, gaining 4c to 370.
Otherwise, the news was mostly negative. Fletcher Building fell a cent to 835, Auckland Airport lost 5c to 217, Sky City fell 11c to 384, Infratil was flat at 216, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 5c at 275.
F&P Appliances fell 3c to 251, having jumped 34c yesterday on news it was closing plants in Dunedin, Brisbane and California and relocating manufacturing to cheaper locations in Thailand, Mexico and Italy.
The Warehouse lost 5c to 580, Tower fell 6c to 202, Steel & Tube was down 5c at 340, carpetmaker Cavalier fell 10c to 260, and NZ Oil and Gas was down 4c at 147.
On the rise, Sky TV was up 5c at 470, Tourism Holdings gained 3c to 191, Michael Hill was up 4c at 92, and Rakon rose 7c to 320.
Mainfreight was up 10c at 660, and Freightways gained 4c to 351.
The market was in a lull ahead of the release of earnings reports from companies with March 31 reporting dates.
"That will be very interesting, particularly the ones that have a lot of domestic exposure ... we've seen the confidence figures, we've seen the retail sales figures, and all that sort of stuff, the actual impact that's having on these companies' bottom lines," Mr Smalley said.
Among dual-listed stocks, ANZ slid 90c to 2390, Westpac fell 100 to 2580, AMP fell 15c to 935, and Lion Nathan was down 8c at 1050.
Australia's benchmark index was down 1.8 per cent at 5421, while Japan's Nikkei share average was up 0.3 per cent.
Earlier, Wall Street provided little direction with the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 closing little changed.
A strong performance by IBM took the sting out of cautious outlooks from eBay and United Technologies, allowing investors to hold onto gains racked up in a huge rally the previous session.
But the Nasdaq closed lower, hurt by eBay shares, which fell 3.5 per cent after the company said the slowing economy was hurting its online auction business.
- NZPA
