NZ stocks: Market eases slightly, shrugs off Wall St dive

5.45pm

The New Zealand market eased slightly today after it became clear that Wall Street had not turned the corner as some had hoped.

After four straight days of gains, including one 4.8 per cent gain, Wall St's rally screeched to a halt on Wednesday after disappointing earnings forecasts, including for technology bellwether Intel, and a poor pre-market result by Motorola.

In New Zealand, the NZSE-40 capital index lost 4.62 points, or 0.23 per cent, to close at 1989.67, while the top-10 index was down 0.07 per cent at 895.10.

Many of the blue chip stocks ended the day where they kicked off as the market dawdled through the session. Turnover of 21.97 million stocks, valued at $60.49 million, was topped by Telecom's 5.90 million shares worth $29.96 million.

Andrew Kelleher of ASB Securities said about 40 per cent of the top 10 stocks had not moved at all.

"And with Auckland Airports down 2c (at 418), Independent Newspapers Ltd down 5c (at 295), The Warehouse down 5c (at 717), and Fisher& Paykel Healthcare up 4c (at 1000), it's not exactly a riveting day," Mr Kelleher said.

"Turnover has been steady, but not spectacular, dominated by Telecom once again...."

Casino operator Sky City, with turnover of $6.44 million, was second largest in terms of value, but closed unchanged at 745.

The illiquid Air New Zealand stock was down 4c at 48 on reasonable volume, Guinness Peat Group lost 2c to 149, Baycorp Advantage was down 3c at 315, AMP lost 25c to 1435, and Nuplex shed 3c to 312.

Restaurant Brands closed down 2c at 172, prior to the release of its interim profit results, which showed profit down 17.5 per cent following the purchase of 51 Pizza Hut stores in the Australian state of Victoria last year.

Forest products company Carter Holt Harvey was up 1c at 160 after its third-quarter results yesterday, including net profit of $60 million for the last three months which was close to expectations.

"I thought they might do slightly better today, I think it was a good result and potentially that share price could be quite a bit higher," Mr Kelleher said.

"I thought we might see a bit more action on that but we haven't, and I guess that's par for the course on a day when there wasn't much action."

ANZ was up 15c at 2050, F&P Appliances gained 23c to 1015, Fletcher Building was unchanged at 292, and Contact Energy was up 1c at 385.

There were 43 rises and 42 falls on the 130 stocks traded.

On Wall St overnight, the Dow Jones industrial average slumped 219.65 points, or 2.66 per cent, to 8036.03, while the Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 50.02 points, or 3.9 per cent, to 1232.42. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index sagged 21.25 points, or 2.41 per cent, to 860.02.

The Dow Jones has traversed nearly 1000 points over the last week.

- NZPA