Sharemarket edges lower amid quiet trading

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which was added to the MSCI index, fell 1.2 per cent to $12.99. Picture / Dean Purcell

New Zealand shares edged lower in quiet trading as investors weighed up the mixed messages from Wall Street on Friday and NZX's trading platform suffered an outage late in the day. Synlait Milk declined ahead of an investor update this week.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index slipped 3.96 points, or 0.05 per cent, to 8,184.87. Within the index, 25 stocks gained, 18 declined, and seven were unchanged. Turnover was $77.3 million.

Stock markets across Asia lacked direction after Wall Street dipped on Friday on news former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents and was cooperating with an investigation into Russian interference in last year's election. That eroded earlier optimism new tax legislation lowering the corporate rate will be passed into law.

"There's not a lot to grasp from Friday night's announcements and people are waiting to see how offshore markets react to all of those developments," said Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners.

Trading was also hindered by an outage on NZX's platform with data issues affecting all vendors. The outage disrupted stocks, indices, futures and options trading, according to Reuters updates and was first reported at 3.26pm. As at 5.30pm there was still no estimated time for a resolution. NZX shares slipped 1.8 per cent to $1.10.

Synlait led the benchmark index lower, falling 2.8 per cent to $7.19 ahead of an investor day on Friday. The milk processor has soared 138 per cent so far this year, and Lister said investors will be looking for evidence the rally is justified.

Lister said Fonterra Cooperative Group is holding an investor briefing on Thursday, and with the Global Dairy Trade auction on Wednesday and a looming forecast farmgate payout review, dairy is high on investors' minds. Fonterra Shareholders' Fund units fell 1.3 per cent to $6.32, while a2 Milk Co increased 0.1 per cent to $8.30.

Kiwi Property Group declined 2.2 per cent, or 3c, to $1.34 after shedding rights to a 3.425c per share dividend. The property investor also launched an offer to raise $125m selling seven-year bonds to repay bank debt.

Summerset Group posted the biggest gain on the day, up 2.5 per cent to $5.32. Port of Tauranga increased 1.4 per cent to $4.81, Metro Performance Glass advanced 1.1 per cent to 93c and Comvita rose 0.9 per cent to $7.52.

Contact Energy rose 0.6 per cent to $5.48. US fund manager BlackRock issued a notice today saying it as no longer a substantial shareholder in the power company after last week's MSCI index reweighting. The fund manager reduced its stake to 2.4 per cent from 5.4 per cent.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which was added to the MSCI index, fell 1.2 per cent to $12.99.

Among other market leaders, Auckland International Airport increased 0.8 per cent to $6.50, Fletcher Building declined 1 per cent to $6.92, Meridian Energy advanced 0.5 per cent to $2.92, and Spark New Zealand declined 0.7 per cent to $3.625. Xero fell 0.4 per cent to $31.80.

Outside the benchmark index, Gentrack gained 6.2 per cent to $6.69 after announcing it had signed a "significant contract" with Npower in the UK to provide its Junifer billing system.