The New Zealand sharemarket opened flat, as investors continue to try to assess the impact of a biosecurity event in the kiwifruit industry.Vine-killing bacteria PSA was found on kiwifruit vines in a North Island orchard, and the Ministry of Agriculture a
The New Zealand sharemarket opened flat, as investors continue to try to assess the impact of a biosecurity event in the kiwifruit industry.
Vine-killing bacteria PSA was found on kiwifruit vines in a North Island orchard, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is scrambling to determine the strain of the disease.
A virulent strain of PSA has proved to be a serious issue for growers in Italy but strains in Korea and Japan have not been such a problem.
The event saw trading in securities of Satara Cooperative Group and Seeka Kiwifruit Industries halted for the day yesterday.
The halts were lifted before the start of trading today but no transactions were reported for either company in the first few minutes after the market opened.
Around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 1.35 points to 3315.05, having slipped 2.8 points yesterday.
Port of Tauranga fell 6c early to 740, Sanford lost 3c to 455, Contact Energy was down 2c to 594 and Property for Industry was down 2c to 118. Fletcher Building edged up 1c to 814 and Telecom was unchanged on 208.
In the United States stocks were pulling back from a rally that had brought indexes to their highest level since the peak of the financial crisis in September 2008.
Investors were thought to be pausing as concerns about European sovereign debt were reignited.
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.3 percent to close at 11,406, the S&P 500 index fell 0.2 percent to 1223, and the Nasdaq rose less than 0.1 percent to 2580.
