Large listed companies were not immune to global market jitters when the New Zealand stock exchange reopened yesterday, with losses soon mounting.
In early trading, some shares fell by large margins before clawing their way back as bargain hunters entered the market.
New Zealand was the only exchange in Australia or Asia to reflect the global market volatility, which began mid-last week.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said the NZX was in "catch-up" mode to the major exchanges, which have made huge losses during the past three trading days.
The surprise yesterday was the "strength across the board" in Asian and Australian markets, with indices of the latter up more than 1%, he said.
Gold companies Oceana Gold and New Talisman Gold Mine bucked the New Zealand trend, gaining almost 11% and 5.2% respectively, but on light trading volumes. Oceana was trading at $3.22 in early March but had declined to $2.27 by mid-May, before retracing some losses to trade around $2.60 yesterday.
In a range of losses, by 2pm, Goodman Fielder was down 4%, Fisher and Paykel Appliances 3.70%, Telecom 3.54%, Kathmandu 2.76%, Freightways 2.36%, Air New Zealand 2.33%, Ebos Group 2.13%, APN News and Media 2.11%, Diligent 2.08%, Heartland New Zealand 2.04%, AMP 2.02% and AWF Group 2%.
While there were larger percentage losses, the volume of shares traded was small.
By the end of the day, many of the shares had retraced their losses, with the market closing down less than 1%.
Mr McIntyre thought Telecom shares would have held up better, but there was market speculation Vodafone New Zealand was in talks with Telstra Corp over a potential sale of its New Zealand subsidiary, TelstraClear, which could affect market share.
Fletcher Building initially dipped below $6, before retracing to $6.05 later in the day.
