"The reaction was quite firm early but when Australia opened it finished up, it had gotten as low as $8. You never know with Australia, given they're big holders of the name, whether they'll give the extra hammer blow or in this case they've bid it back up."
The downgrade comes less than four weeks after Fletcher affirmed its earlier guidance with its first-half results, which included just $1 million contribution from its New Zealand construction business, despite gross revenue from construction soaring 54 per cent to $1.15 billion in the first half. The slump reflected losses incurred on a major construction project, which it didn't identify, and it kept the identity of the project secret yesterday, citing client confidentiality.
"It's disappointing that there's suddenly new meaningful information to provide to the market, it always leaves one somewhat sceptical about whether that would've been known in the first instance and could've been incorporated in the result," De Cesare said.
The index's weakness was partly explained by Fletcher Building's drop, which is 7.3 per cent of the index, but the local benchmark saw broad-based weakness yesterday led from offshore, with the ASX 200 down 0.36 per cent as of close yesterday.
"We tend to take a lead from Australia when they open, if they're having a down day we get dragged into it," De Cesare said. "Overnight we'll see if global markets continue the negative tone they finished the week before on or they'll keep on pushing record highs - it will give some direction to what's going on here."
Auckland International Airport, which gave up rights to a 10 cent dividend, dropped 3 per cent or 21 cents to $6.85. Metlifecare fell 2.4 per cent to $6.05 and Metro Performance Glass dropped 2.1 per cent to $1.43.
Meridian Energy was the best performer, up 1.4 per cent to $2.84, while NZX gained 1 per cent to $1.05 and Ebos Group rose 0.7 per cent to $18.30.
