Asian Economic News
Mixed Opens Seen For New Zealand, Australia Shares
11/17/2009 3:34 PM ET
(RTTNews) -
Mixed opens are forecast for the New Zealand and Australian markets on Wednesday. Traders got a largely directionless lead from Wall Street as the major U.S. indices were trading near the break-even mark approaching the market close
The New Zealand sharemarket opened higher but closed lower on Tuesday.
The benchmark NZX-50 index lost 42.5 points or 1.3 percent to close at 3,131.5.
The New Zealand Stock Exchange reported trading volume of 44.8 million shares valued at NZ$94.8 million.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancers 45 to 27 with 43 unchanged.
Among the session's most heavily traded stocks, Auckland International Airport was down NZ$0.03, AMP New Zealand Office Trust was unchanged, Fletcher Building was down .04, Freightways was down .05, Goodman Property Trust was down .02, Infratil declined .03, Kiwi Income Property Trust was down a penny, Pike River Coal was unchanged, Rakon was down .03, SkyCity Entertainment was down .11, Sky Network TV was down a penny and Telecom Corp of NZ was down .04.
For the Australia-NZ dual-listed stocks, Australia and NZ Bank was down .29, Westpac Bank was down .59, AMP was down .11, Telstra was down a nickel and Pan Pac was unchanged.
In Australia, the market finished lower after a bout of profit-taking.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 average was down 25.8 points or 0.5 percent while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 23.6 points or 0.5 percent to 4,750.2.
Trading volume hit 2.93 billion shares valued at A$5.55 billion.
In the resources sector, mining leader BHP Billiton was up A$0.40 while rival Rio Tinto was up .52, Fortescue Metals was down .02 and OZ Minerals was unchanged.
In the gold sector, Newmont Mining was up .04, Lihir Gold fell .03 and Newcrest Mining was down .16.
Among the big banks, Australia and NZ Banking Group was down .29, National Australia Bank was unchanged, Commonwealth Bank of Australia was down $1.32 and Westpac was down .59.
For the retailers, Woolworths was up a nickel while Wesfarmers was up .77, Harvey Norman was down .03, David Jones was down .03 and JB Hi-Fi was down .06.
In overseas trading, U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday, as investors reacted to a mixed bag of earnings news and economic data. About a half hour before the closing bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 20.63 points or 0.20 percent at 10,477, the Nasdaq Composite index was ahead by 3.14 points or 0.14 percent at 2,200.95 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 0.57 point or 0.05 percent at 1,108.73.
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