Market close: Local shares take another hit

The NZX ticker on the building downtown. Supplied

New Zealand shares fell as last week's sell-off continued, with SkyCity Entertainment and Orion Health dropping while Tegel and A2 Milk made gains.

The S&P/NZX50 Index dropped 66.89 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 7,066.37. Within the index, 37 stocks fell, eight rose and five were unchanged. Turnover was $128.9 million.

"We're definitely seeing quite a bit of weakness in our market. It looks like reasonable selling volume and maybe some uncertainty is keeping buyers on the sidelines," said James Smalley, director at Hamilton Hindin Greene.

"What you're seeing on the market at the moment is more selling from overseas investors and what's exacerbated it is the lack of buying from domestic-based investors."

Orion Health Group led the index lower, down 4.5 per cent to $3.20.

SkyCity Entertainment Group dropped 4.1 per cent to $4.45. Some 18 staff employed by its Australian rival, Crown Resorts, have been arrested by the Chinese government. In a statement to the ASX, Crown Resorts said that one of those arrested was its Executive Vice President VIP International, Jason O'Connor.

It also confirmed the arrests, which were first reported by the Australian Financial Review. In China, it is illegal to arrange for more than 10 people to gamble overseas.

"In the Asia-Pacific region, they're all competing for those large whales who fly in, and possibly this is a general crackdown on this side of the market," Smalley said. "These are extremely high net worth individuals so this might put a crimp on some of that high worth activity which is Sky's high margin stuff."

Comvita shed 4 per cent to $10.55 while Chorus dropped 3.6 per cent to $3.59.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare declined 3.4 per cent to $9.40, a five-month low.
"It's a stock that's been a bit of a favourite with institutional investors - it has a global footprint, one stock that would have a lot of overseas institutional exposure," Smalley said. "Ironically, rising interest rates would actually be beneficial to Fisher & Paykel because their earnings are in US dollars."

Tegel Group Holdings rose 2 per cent to $1.51, A2 Milk gained 1.6 per cent to $1.95 and Contact Energy advanced 1 percent to $4.95.
Outside the benchmark index, OceanaGold dropped 2.3 per cent to $3.91.

It's Pac Rim Cayman subsidiary has been ordered to pay US$8 million to El Salvador to cover the country's legal fees and costs in a long-running arbitration after the mining company failed to obtain an exploitation concession.

Airwork Holdings was unchanged at $4.80.

The NZX-listed specialist aviation company, currently subject to a takeover bid from China's Zhejiang Rifa Holding Group (RIFA), has appointed Grant Samuel to prepare an independent advisor's report on the offer.

Shares in crime-fighting software company Wynyard have been placed in a trading halt at 21.5 cents ahead of a company announcement. The value of Wynyard's shares has fallen 88 per cent since the start of 2016.

In August, Wynyard more than doubled its first-half loss and halved its full-year guidance to between $27-to-$30 million from a previous range of $54-to-$65 million