New Zealand shares fell on Friday, with the benchmark Top 50 Index dropping 9 points to 5,186.
A portfolio manager at Mint Asset Management, Anthony Halls, said the local market was reacting to offshore markets, with Europe and the United States a little weaker overnight overnight.
Among the few pieces of company news on Friday, Goodman Fielder's third largest shareholder raised its takeover offer to $A1.37 billion.
Goodman had dismissed the Singapore-based agribusiness Wilmar International's previous $A1.27 billion as opportunistic and said that it materially undervalued the company.
Wilmar, and its bidding partner, the Hong-Kong-listed investment business, First Pacific, said the bid was conditional on Goodman's board agreeing to unanimously support it by 8pm on Friday, Melbourne time, and to provide Wilmar with access to do due diligence.
On the NZX on Friday, Goodman shares rose 1 cent to 74 New Zealand cents. Fletcher Building shares fell 8 cents to $9.13.
An analyst at Forsyth Barr, Andy Bowley, said the removal of anti-dumping duties in the Budget was not likely to affect Fletcher's GIB brand, which commands more than 90 percent of the New Zealand market, in the near term.
The New Zealand dollar was slightly weaker against the currencies of all the country's major trading partners on Friday.
Rankin Treasury Advisory managing director Derek Rankin said investors lacked a clear sense of direction at the moment.
Shortly after 5pm, the kiwi was trading at 86.41 US cents, 92.37 Australian cents, 51.46 British pence, 0.63 euro, 87.68 yen and 5.38 renminbi.
