NZ sharemarket ends week on a weak note

The New Zealand sharemarket limped to a disappointing end to the week as drab offshore markets kept the market down.

At 5pm today the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 12 points for the day, or 0.345 percent, to 3469.588. It was 22 points down over the week.

Turnover of 52.9 million shares was worth $138 million. There were 46 falls and 34 rises in the 107 stocks traded.

A weaker day's trading finished a "pretty disappointing" week for the local market, said Grant Williamson, director at Hamilton Hindin Greene.

On Wednesday the benchmark NZX-50 index rose 17 points as retail sales figures in the US saw stocks there post their biggest gains in nearly two months -- and similar New Zealand data was better than expected. However, escalating Greek debt woes and troubling United States economic data then contributed to knock the benchmark index heavily.

"Overseas pressures are beginning to tell on local investors somewhat. Wall Street is under pressure and Australia has certainly been assisting in dragging the New Zealand market down," Mr Williamson said.

Middle tier stocks tended to outperform the blue chip stocks today, he said.

There was also a lack of news, but today's bad news for Contact Energy and Telecom did not appear to punish them any more than the general market.

Contact will have to pay about $280,000 to around 25,000 former customers following a Commerce Commission investigation into prompt payment discounts when they switched to another supplier.

Telecom says it will compensate nearly 40,000 customers after it overestimated how much broadband they were using over about seven months. The amount has not been revealed.

Contact Energy was down 4c to 575 and Telecom eased 2c to 238

Negative stocks included Guinness Peat Group, down 1c to 79, Auckland Airport descending 1.5c to 224 and Pyne Gould Corporation, shedding 3c to 36.

Infratil slipped 2c to 182 and Fisher & Paykel Appliances dropped 1.5c to 61.

Kiwi Income Property Trust unchanged at 103.5, as was Sky City at 362.

However, Fletcher Building went against the trend, up 5c to 862 and Nuplex also improved 6c to 314.

"We can always mention the earthquake, there's certainly a bit more work on after the aftershocks," Mr Williamson said.

Kathmandu Holdings improved 5c to 219 and Michael Hill International up 2c to 94. NZX was up 9c to 245.

Nuplex, up 6c to 314 and Port of Tauranga, up 15c to 890, made "nice little moves up", as did Cavalier, rising 10c to 360.

"The tone on the market is certainly a bit negative at the moment," Mr Williamson said.

US stocks rose in volatile trading on Thursday, thanks only to technical factors and options expirations. But raging uncertainty about Greece prevented investors from committing money to the market.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 64.25 points, or 0.54 percent, to 11,961.52. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 2.22 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1267.64. But the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 7.76 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2623.70.

The Japanese Nikkei stock average hit a three-month low, down 0.6 percent at 9351.40, on Friday as investors moved into safer assets with worries over Greece compounding jitters that the global economy may be slowly headed for a sustained slowdown.

Australian shares closed slightly higher after giving up bigger gains. At the close, the benchmark S&P

ASX200 index was up 5.7 points, or 0.1 percent, at 4484.9, after earlier being up as much as 1 percent.