The Warehouse rises early, but broader NZ sharemarket down

Monday 27th June 2011

Retailer The Warehouse was one of the few bright spots in the first few minutes of trading for the new week on the New Zealand sharemarket.

A 6c rise in The Warehouse shares to 349 follows a weekend report that Australian-based Woolworths is interested in lifting its stake in the company.

But the broader market was slipping, after stocks in the United States ended last week with a third successive day of declines as investors worried about the Italian banking sector and Greece's debt crisis.

Around 10.15am today the benchmark NZX-50 index, which has fallen for six of the past seven days, was down 7.86 points to 3447.74 after falling 6.2 points on Friday.

Fletcher Building fell 4c to 863, Contact Energy was down 2c early to 534, and Telecom lost 2c to 249. Mainfreight gained 2c to 1017, and Port of Tauranga added 2c to 887.

In the US on Friday (local time) The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1 percent to 11,934.58 at the close, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.2 percent to 1268.45, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.3 percent to 2652.89.

For the week, the Dow fell 0.6 percent and the S&P 500 shed 0.2 percent, while the Nasdaq gained 1.4 percent.

NZPA

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