Market slips after US market falls

The New Zealand sharemarket slipped lower today after the United States market tumbled in its last hour of trading.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 17.489 points, or 0.556 per cent, at 3130.418. Turnover was worth $108.59 million and it was boosted by volume in Goodman Property Trust and Telecom.

There were 34 rises and 58 falls among the 121 stocks traded.

"It was pretty quiet. There was volume in a few stocks," said Hamilton, Hindin, Greene director Adrian Vance.

Pyne Gould Corp shares fell 18c to 81 after the company announced a $237m six-for-one rights issue yesterday to be followed a placement and share purchase plan.

"Overall it has been fairly well structured in terms of the company getting the capital and bringing new investors in and existing shareholders being able to participate as well," Mr Vance said.

He said the company had made the right decision to "do it once and do it properly".

Rakon fell 3c to 125 after successfully raising capital this week.

Skellerup rose 4c to 59 and its rights rose 3c to 17.

PGG Wrightson, which is expected to announce a capital raising, fell 1c to 69.

Hallenstein Glasson rose 11c to 305. The company reported a 19.3 per cent fall in profit but is hopeful it will not have to discount as much as the economy recovers.

Among leaders, Fletcher Building fell 18c to 831, Telecom gained 1c to 262, and Contact Energy rose 3c to 576.

SkyTV rose 6c to 474, Mainfreight rose 10c to 525, GPG rose 1c to 90 and Hellaby rose 2c to 172.

Auckland Airport fell 2c to 185, Infratil fell 1c to 171 and ING Medical Property Trust fell 1c to 116.

Goodman Property Trust was unchanged at 100.

Freightways fell 6c to 314, Sanford fell 6c to 499, SkyCity fell 3c to 316 and Port of Tauranga fell 6c to 644. TrustPower fell 7c to 740.

Methven fell 5c to 165 and Michael Hill fell 3c to 72.

US stocks fell on Wednesday as investors worried the Federal Reserve is closer to pulling back on extraordinary measures to inject funding to shore up the economy.

"They're talking about removing some of the various packages they have in place for purchasing mortgages and other instruments in debt markets that was kind of keeping everything flowing," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager at the Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia.

Among the casualties were banks, housing stocks and energy shares.

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 81.32 points, or 0.83 per cent, to 9748.55. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 10.79 points, or 1.01 per cent, to 1060.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 14.88 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 2131.42.

- NZPA