NZ stocks: Shares trade quietly as negative tone continues

Like the America's Cup race, progress was slow on the New Zealand sharemarket today, kicking off the week with a mild turnover and some residual portfolio selling.

After opening slightly up, the benchmark NZSE-40 capital index closed down 11.03 points or 0.57 per cent to 1903.02 on turnover worth $45.3 million.

"The wind was blowing slowly," First NZ Capital broker James Snell said.

"We saw our market start today as it finished on Friday with a little bit of portfolio-based selling. It wasn't any single stock specifically."

On Friday, the market lost more than one per cent, led by Telecom which slid 4c as sentiment turned against the Australian telco sector and a $NZ991 million writedown by market leader Telstra.

Today, Telecom was down 5c to 440, 5c off its year low, on $11 million turnover.

Stocks fell across the board but there were pockets that did well, including some of the Australian listed stocks as the market lifted off a recent low. Westpac rose 50c to 1410, up 3.5 per cent, and ANZ rose 40c to 1790.

Blis was up 2c at 40, after announcing the launch of a new ear infection-fighting product, its second launch in a week.

Some market leaders rebounded after being sold off at the end of last week. Discount retailer The Warehouse initially bounced 9c but closed up 3c to 554 after closing at a seven-month low on Friday, while Carter Holt Harvey was steady at 171 and Sky TV was up 1c at 351.

Others fell ahead of profit announcements this week. Baycorp Advantage shed 6c to 194, Sky City Entertainment was down 5c to 830, THL fell 2c to 112, Michael Hill fell 10c to 505, and Auckland Airport slid 9c to 528.

Air New Zealand, which reports on Thursday, was steady at 53.

After losing 9c on Friday, profit-taking and a slight improvement in hydro-electricity lake levels continued to impact on stellar stock Contact Energy, down 10c today to 441.

NGC Holdings gained a cent to 147 ahead of its results tomorrow, but Powerco fell 6c to 134.

Rural services firm Pyne Gould Guinness shed a cent to 111 despite posting a 27 per cent rise in net after tax profit for the December half year, $5.8 million compared to the previous year.

There were 55 falls and 36 rises on the 133 stocks traded.

On Wall St, the markets saw a rally on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 103.15 points, or 1.30 per cent, at 8018.11; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index up 11.07 points, or 1.32 per cent, at 848.17; and the Nasdaq Composite Index up 17.79 points, or 1.34 per cent, to end at 1349.02.

- NZPA