Stockmarket finishes 2010 up 2.7%

New Zealand's stock market slipped on the last trading at year's end, with the NZX50 back 25 points, to 3309.03 points - but recorded a lift of about 2.7 percent for the calendar year.

Local concerns over the stalled domestic recovery and international worries about the sluggish U.S. economy and Europe's festering debt crisis are expected to keep investors on edge well into the new year.

Australian share investors saw their market end the year about 2.6 percent lower, though some foreign investors still gained because of a 13 percent rise in the Australian dollar against the U.S. dollar.

By comparison, the Dow Jones industrial average was set to close the year with a gain of about 11 percent.

On the NZX, 11 million shares changed hands today at a value of $72.9m.

Tower rose 4c to 209, and Restaurant Brands was up 2c to 264, while Nuplex lifted 3c to 353. Infratil lifted 3c to 194, though on a volume of less than 17,000 shares, while Fisher and Paykel Appliances was up another 1c to 56.

Telecom fell 2c to 217 as 1.2 million of its shares changed hands, and Fletcher Building slipped back 3c to 766.

Contact fell 7c to 623, a drop of over 1 percent, and leading retail stock The Warehouse fell 3c to 350.

Australian shares closed lower with broad-based declines across the market/

The benchmark ASX200 Index was down 45.2 points, or 0.94 percent, at 4745.2, while the broader All Ordinaries Index had fallen 39.8 points, or 0.81 percent, to 4846.9.

On a sector-by-sector basis, telecoms rose by 0.2 percent but the remainder of the sub-indices were lower. The worst were financials, materials and information technology, which shed 1.16, 1.06 and 0.91 percent respectively.

Throughout the course of the year, the S&P/ASX200 has gone from 4870.6 to today's close of 4745.2, a drop of 2.6 percent. It peaked at 5001.9 points for the briefest moment in mid-April and by July had touched a 2010 low of 4222.1.

American indices were mostly flat: The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) trimmed 16 points, to close at 11,570; the S&P 500 (SPX) fell 2 points to close at 1258; and the Nasdaq (COMP) shed 4 points, to close at 2,663.