Sharemarket falls early, Fletcher Building pulls back

Friday 1st April 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket fell in early trading, after yesterday notching up its 12th successive trading day of gains.

Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) shares fell 10c early to $9.24, having yesterday closed up 14c and reaching a three-year high of $9.38 in intraday trading.

With stocks in the United States stalling at the end of the first quarter, the benchmark NZX-50 index in this country was down 7.25 points to 3432.6 after about 15 minutes of trading, having yesterday ended up 6.7 points.

Port of Tauranga (NZX: POT ) gained 5c to $8.25, returning to the record high reached yesterday.

Abano Healthcare (NZX: ABA ) was up 2c to $4.55, and The Warehouse (NZX: WHS ) added 2c to $3.53, while NZ Refining Co (NZX: NZR ) lost 4c to $4.85, Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) dropped 2c to $5.80, and Nuplex (NZX: NPX ) lost 2c to $3.08.

In the US, stocks ended a solid quarter with the barest of moves, as investors looked ahead to the US jobs report to provide a catalyst to push indexes to new highs for the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.3% to 12,319.73, the Standard & Poor's 500 dipped 0.2% to 1325.83, and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.2% to 2781.07.

For the month, the Dow edged up 0.76%, the S&P shed 0.1% and Nasdaq dipped 0.04%.

That trend also proved true for the entire first quarter, with the Dow rising 6.4%, compared with the S&P's gain of 5.4% and the Nasdaq's advance of 4.8%.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

No comments yet