KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket remained mildly negative today, becalmed by negative economic pointers and last Friday's 3 per cent tumble on Wall St.
The benchmark NZSX-50 closed down 0.5 per cent or 18.47 points to 3487.42 on moderate turnover worth $110m.
Top stock Telecom lead the way, down 6c to
380 on reason able volume.
New Zealand had not reacted as severely as the US on Friday, and "we're still suffering the after shocks," James Smalley, a client adviser with Hamilton, Hindin, Greene, said.
Australia was also mildly negative today, down 0.5 per cent on mid-afternoon trading on falling oil and metals prices.
Among other leaders, Contact gained 7c to 866 but Fletcher Building sunk another 21c to 714, touching a 30-month low of 710 on a solid $13.5 million turnover.
Brokers said Fletcher was still suffering from negative economic data, despite a media story today saying the company had an eye out for small-scale acquisitions.
Sky City rose 7c to 358 as the company sold a stake in a Christchurch hotel and spent some of the proceeds on raising its stake in the city's casino.
Profit-takers hit new top 50 entrant Pike River Coal hard, and it fell 17c to 185 on volume worth $1.3 million, after the stock rallied to 208 on high coal prices.
Mr Smalley said the reason was probably nothing other than commodity stock volatility and that the market had "over-reached itself".
Sky TV slid 21c to 443 on light volume after announcing it was spending $22 million over two years on high definition broadcasts.
PGG Wrightson closed up 14c at 275 after briefing touching an all-time high of 276. Brokers said the stock was benefiting from high dairy payouts and its dairying offshoot in Uruguay.
Wakefield Health was the day's best performer, jumping 75c to 900 after Christchurch-based Masthead Investments took a 15 per cent stake in the hospital operator.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances slid 2c to 218 after announcing it was establishing a Dunedin-based call centre; GPG rose 5c to 163; and Steel and Tube fell 40c to 265 .
Overnight, Wall St wobbled to a mixed close as the markets digested a tough message on inflation from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that sparked talk of rates hikes from the central bank.
The Dow Jones drifted upwards by a modest 3.34 points (0.03 per cent) at 12,283.66 at the closing bell.
The Nasdaq composite fell 10.52 points (0.43 per cent) to 2448.94 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index dipped 4.01 points (0.29 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1357.75.
- NZPA