The New Zealand sharemarket closed a touch weaker after a quiet session, with all eyes on Wall Street after the company reporting season kicked off with a positive surprise.The market turned its back on seven consecutive days of gains, with the benchmark
The New Zealand sharemarket closed a touch weaker after a quiet session, with all eyes on Wall Street after the company reporting season kicked off with a positive surprise.
The market turned its back on seven consecutive days of gains, with the benchmark NZX-50 index ending down 3.1 points at 3008.90.
"The main news was Telecom's lowering of their guidance this year, which was not unexpected and had to do with the [government's] budget tax changes," said Grant Williamson, of Hamilton Hindin Greene.
Telecom had been negative but made a late one-cent gain to close at 196.
The telco had warned that tax changes are expected to increase its tax expense by about $38 million in the 2010 financial year, and by up to $30 million the following year.
Adjusted group net earnings for 2010 were now expected to be near the lower end of a range between $362-402 million, having previously been expected to be near the lower end of a range between $400-440 million, Telecom said.
"Elsewhere on the market, pretty much down across the board, but no real major falls," Mr Williamson said.
Among other blue chips, Contact Energy was down 2c at 580, Fletcher Building lost a cent to 770, Fisher&Paykel Healthcare was down 3c at 306 and Infrail lost a cent to 162.
On the other side, Sky City gained 4c to 295, Sky TV was up 3c at 479, and Auckland Airport gained a cent to 194.
One of the best performers was small-cap fast food operator Restaurant Brands, which has been trading at record highs in recent sessions.
Shares in Restaurant Brands – which owns the KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks franchises in New Zealand – were up 2c at 239.
"Once they managed to dispose of their loss-making [Pizza Hut] Victorian assets in Australia, they've concentrated on their core business in New Zealand, and KFC in particular has gone from strength to strength," Mr Williamson said.
Other stocks to gain were Ebos Group, up a cent at 616, Nuplex, up a cent at 300, Pyne Gould Corp, a cent higher at 40, and Port of Tauranga, up 4c at 690.
Dual-listed Westpac was up 5c at 2750, and ANZ rose 13c to 2755.
Across the Tasman, the S&P/ASX 200 Index was down half a percent at 4384.
A 2% fall for Chinese shares, in reaction to news the government will keep trying to reign in property speculators, weighed on markets.
That turned the earlier, positive sentiment from a surprisingly strong quarterly result for US aluminium giant Alcoa.
All eyes will be on US markets tonight with the next major results coming from JP Morgan on Thursday and General Electric on Friday.
