NZ sharemarket down early

Wednesday 16th February 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket fell in early trading as miner OceanaGold gave up some of the gain of almost 10% it made yesterday.

OceanaGold (NZX: OGC ) shares opened down 8c to $3.67, having risen 33c yesterday after reporting an increase in its South Island reserves.

Sky City (NZX: SKC ), which said it lifted half year normalised net profit 2.1%, fell 3c early to $3.30.

Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) fell 4c early, to $8.17, after reporting an 8% rise in half year net profit.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 7.71 points to 3382.39, after gaining 6 points yesterday.

Restaurant Brands (NZX: RBD ) fell 2c to $2.50, Nuplex (NZX: NPX ) lost 3c to $3.65, Skellerup (NZX: SKL ) was down 2c to $1.24, and NZ Refining Co (NZX: NZR ) lost 2c to $5.16.

Kathmandu Holdings (NZX: KMD ) gained 2c to $2.15, while Telecom (NZX: TEL ) was unchanged on $2.24, and Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) was unchanged on $6.22.

In the US, stocks closed lower after a surprisingly weak retail sales report.

The Commerce Department said US retail sales rose just 0.3% in January, the smallest increase since June and half of what economists had predicted.

Energy companies led the way down. Exxon Mobil Corp lost 2.3%, the largest drop among the 30 large companies that make up the Dow Jones index.

According to preliminary figures, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.3% to 12,226, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 0.3% to 1328, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.4% to 2804.

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