3 Nov 2009

NZ sharemarket slides in early trading

1:13 pm on 3 November 2009

The NZX 50 index fell 7 points, or 0.2%, to 3176 during early Tuesday trading, on turnover of $34 million

At 12.46pm, Fletcher Building was up 3 cents to $8.15, Telecom was unchanged at $2.53, and Contact Energy had fallen 8 cents to $6.10.

Sky City Entertainment rose 2 cents to $3.41.

Auckland International Airport fell 5 cents to $1.92.

Air New Zealand fell 1 cent to $1.27 after announcing it is buying 14 new Airbus A320 planes to replace its Boeing 737-300s.

Infratil was down 2 cents to $1.63 after announcing that it and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund are in negotiations to buy some of Shell's assets.

The Warehouse was down 2 cents to $4.51.

In currency markets, the NZ dollar was trading at 71.91 US cents, 79.48 Australian, 43.8 pence, 65.06 yen and 0.4872 euro. The TWI was 64.84.

Across the Tasman, the Australian 200 index was up 13 points, or 0.3%, to 4554.

Wall St ends higher

US stocks rose on Monday after another round of solid economic reports, but fell back after a Federal Reserve official's warning about banks' loan losses.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 76.71 points, or 0.79%, to end at 9,789.44.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 6.69 points, or 0.65%, to 1,042.88.

The Nasdaq Composite Index added 4.09 points, or 0.20 percent, to 2,049.20.

Ford Motor Co shares jumped 8.3% to $US7.58 after the automaker posted a quarterly profit.