KEY POINTS:
Shares in The Warehouse rose today, providing a bright spot on an otherwise down day on the share market with AMP among the losers.
The Warehouse shares rose 19c to 341, having lost 60c by the end of yesterday when a court ruling saw off the prospect of a takeover from supermarket operators.
Today the story had moved on to speculation that Stephen Tindall is weighing up options that include relaunching a bid for the company he founded.
Despite that lift, the market as a whole was down, with the benchmark NZSX-50 index off 33.12 points to 3303.16. There were 52 falls and 34 rises. Volume was worth $113 million.
The New Zealand market was always going to struggle when the Australian market was down 2 per cent during afternoon trading.
Today's softness comes after two days of strong rises which have pulled the index up from around 3235 points.
That rise had been driven by Telecom, which gave up much of its gains today, falling 14c to 368.
AMP was the biggest loser among the top stocks after announcing the suspension of its AMP Capital NZ Property Fund it fell 58c, or 6.92 per cent, to 780.
Fletcher Building was down 12c, to 626.
Vector improved 7c to 225 after the company announced it was buying back up to 2.5 per cent of its shares because the market under valued them.
"They are reducing their asset base so I think it is also a good idea to reduce your equity base as well," Grant Williamson of Hamilton Hindin Greene said.
"There is not a lot of other news in the market. We are really just following what is happening on those offshore markets," he said.
Contact Energy was up 6c to 846.
Retailer Postie Plus Group was down 1c at 39, after today saying it would have a full year trading loss of between $6.5 million and $7.5 million.
Mainfreight rose 12c to 691 and Rakon rose 1c to 257. Air NZ fell 1c to 125 and Pike River Coal fell 5c to 199.
APN fell 10c to 402. Fisher & Paykel Appliances fell 5c to 189.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 1.78 per cent to 11,378.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 1.31 per cent to 1267.38. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.18 per cent to 2325.55.
For the month, the Dow was up 0.25 per cent, while the Nasdaq finished July up 1.42 per cent. The S&P 500 lost 1 per cent in July.
It follows a fall in US stocks.
- NZPA