12 Aug 2010

NZ market lower

10:50 pm on 12 August 2010

The New Zealand sharemarket fell 29 points, or 1%, to close at 3007 on Thursday on turnover of $43 million.

Fletcher Building shed 10 cents to $7.47 a share, Telecom was down 3c to $2.01, while Contact Energy gained 1c to $5.70.

Sky City Entertainment was down 5c to $3.01 and Sky Network Television fell 4c to $4.99.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 3c to $2.88, while Fisher & Paykel Appliances was down 1c to 50c.

Retailer The Warehouse fell 3c to $3.47, Hallenstein Glasson was down 5c to $3.85 and Kathmandu was 8c lower at $1.61.

Steel and Tube was down 7c to $2.15 after its full-year profit fell by more than three quarters.

Turners and Growers fell 5c to $1.40 after its underlying half-year profit rose by 15%.

Allied Farmers was down 1.3c, or 34%, to 2.5 cents after the value of its Hanover Finance assets fell to $94.3 million, about a quarter original purchase price. Meanwhile, Standard and Poor's lowered the credit rating of Allied Nationwide Finance from B to CC.

At 5.20pm on Thursday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 71.26 US, 79.67 Australian, 45.46 pence, 60.78 yen and 0.5538 euro. The Trade Weighted Index stood at 66.5.