NZX-50 slips to lowest level for month

New Zealand's benchmark stock index, the NZX50, rose nearly 15 points before lunch, only to slump badly through the afternoon and end down by 10 points on Friday's closing level before the holiday weekend.

The index is now at its lowest level for over a month.

It gained in early trading -- despite falling stock prices in the United States where weak data was supporting a bearish outlook for the economy -- and late in the morning had clawed back most of the 11.1 points the index lost on Friday.

But at the end of the day, it had dropped a further 9.152 points (0.26 percent) to 3505.612, on a volume of 34 million shares, valued at nearly $92m.

The total NZX trading amounted to 40.7m shares valued at $97m. There were 35 rises and 47 falls among the 111 stocks traded.

Logistics and courier company Freightways rose 9c to 335, but Mainfreight fell again, by 6c, to 982.

Contact Energy added 5c early but finished the day down 4c, at 581, and Fletcher Building similarly gained 3c during the morning only to finish the day down 4c at 883.

Cornerstone stock Telecom fell 2.5c to 230, with over 11m shares trading at a value of $26.4m.

Trustpower was down 5c to 740, and Cavalier Corp fell 3c in early trade and finished the day down 9c at 375, and Sky TV lifted 4c to 572 in the early trades, but finished down 1c at 567.

Some stocks manage to hold on to part of their gains: Ryman Healthcare was up 7c in early trade and finished the day up 3c at 274, Sky City was initially up 3c and finished up 2c at 360, while Nuplex gained 3c at first, but finished the day on par at 310.

Across the Tasman, the Australian sharemarket closed flat, regaining earlier lost ground, after the central bank kept interest rates on hold.

The benchmark S&P

ASX200 index was down 2.8 points, or 0.06 per cent, at 4,566.3, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 7.6 points, or 0.16 per cent, at 4,641.1.

On the ASX 24, the June share price index futures contract was down three points at 4566, with 33,368 contracts traded.

In the US, stocks have been battered over the past five weeks on a number of disappointing reports, culminating in Friday's (local time) US employment report, which showed employers added a meagre 54,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.5 percent to 12,090.11, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.1 percent to 1286.17, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.1 percent to 2702.56.