NZ sharemarket slips early

Thursday 7th July 2011 1 Comment

The New Zealand sharemarket slipped in lacklustre early trading, with a further fall by key stock Fletcher Building the most notable feature.

Shares in Fletcher Building were down 6c in the first few minutes of trading to a 4-12-month low 835, on top of a 15c decline yesterday. The stock has been falling for three months from a three-year high 953.

Today The New Zealand Herald said analysts had readjusted expectations about the timing of benefits to Fletcher Building from the rebuilding of Christchurch and from the company's $1.2 billion acquisition of Australia's Crane Group in May.

Around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 1.69 points to 3459.13, having fallen 12.8 points yesterday.

Stocks gaining early included OceanaGold up 5c to 350, on top of a 17c gain yesterday, with Sky TV adding 4c to 584, and Tower up 3c to 151.

Key stocks Telecom and Contact Energy were unchanged early on 248.5 and 532, respectively.

In the United States, transportation stocks were among the standouts in a flat session for equities, with the Dow Jones transportation average rising 1.2 percent to a new closing high.

The gains were led by Con-Way Inc, which added 5.7 percent to $US41.87 after the US trucking company said it was restoring some employee benefits because the economy had improved.

"Strength in transportation stocks goes a long way to signalling that manufacturing will continue to be robust and that the cyclical nature of the recovery is picking up steam," said Roger Volz, director of cash equities at BGC Financial in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.5 percent at 12,626.02, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 0.1 percent at 1339.22, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.3 percent at 2834.02.

NZPA

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