Sharemarket falls early in new week

Monday 10th January 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week in decline, as dual-listed banks Westpac and ANZ were knocked back.

Westpac (NZX: WBC ) lost 59c, or 2%, early to $28.90, while ANZ (NZX: ANZ ) fell 54c, or 1.8%, to $29.56.

Bank stocks in the US had taken a bashing at the end of last week, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled against Wells Fargo and US Bancorp in a key case relating to banks' foreclosure processing.

Shares of Wells Fargo dropped 2%, those of Bank of America lost 1.3% while JPMorgan Chase fell 1.8%.

In this country, the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 4.65 points to 3313.29 around 10.15am today, having lost 7.8 points on Friday.

Cavalier Corp (NZX: CAV ) was down 2c to $3.03, while the Port of Tauranga (NZX: POT ) was up 4c to $7.50, Hallenstein Glasson (NZX: HLG ) was up 3c to $4.20, Briscoe (NZX: BGR ) gained 3c to $1.38, and Freightways (NZX: FRE ) lifted 2c to $3.12.

In the US stocks closed with modest losses on Friday (local time) after a mixed unemployment report dampened sentiment and as bank stocks took a bashing following a court ruling on home foreclosures.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.2% to close at 11,674.76, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 0.2% at 1271.50 points, and the tech-rich Nasdaq declined 0.3% at 2703.17.

The Labor Department reported a sharp fall in the unemployment rate in December to 9.4%, but at the same time, the economy created 103,000 jobs, many fewer than the 150,000 forecast by analysts.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Friday that the current rate of job creation was "insufficient" and meant a "considerable time" will be needed to right the jobs market.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

No comments yet