NZ shares start week on soft note

Within the S&P/NZX 50 index, 25 stocks gained, 14 fell and 11 were unchanged. Turnover was about $124 million.

The New Zealand share market took its cue from the major offshore markets to start the holiday-shortened week on a soft note, with technology-based stocks leading the way.

By late morning, the S&P NZX50 index was down by nearly 50 points or 0.8 per cent at 6105, following on from a 1.3 per cent fall on the Dow Jones industrial index and a 3.3 per cent drop on the technology-heavy NASDAQ index.

"I think that we are just following overseas trend at this point," Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs IP, said. Some New Zealand technology-based stocks were playing catch-up, after Monday's holiday, with in US tech stocks stock markets late on Friday and yesterday.

Among the movements, Cloud-base accounting firm Xero dropped 50c to $15.75 and information technology company Orion Health dropped by 17c to $2.83.

Lister said he expected the market, in the absence of major data releases this week, to continue to take its cue from offshore markets.

In the meantime, the Australian market, which opens at noon, is expected to provide some local direction.