Market commentaries

WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares fell after a sharp drop on Wall Street overnight spooked investors throughout Asia’s markets.

The S&P/NZX 50 index fell 95.33 points, or 1.1%, to 8861.52. Within the index, 29 stocks fell, 10 were unchanged and 11 rose. Turnover was modest at $100.5 million.

US stocks fell for a second day amid signs of slowing tech growth and a sharp fall for Goldman Sachs after Malaysia said it would seek full refunds from any fraudulent bond deals the bank conducted in relation to the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.3%, while the S&P 500 Index fell by almost 2%.

Hamilton Hindin Greene director Grant Williamson said the local market had performed quite well yesterday, particularly given the weaker performance in Australia. The S&P/ASX 200 index was recently down 1.7% at 5840.70.

Among the bigger local decliners were a2 Milk Co, down 2.3% at $10.30, and Ryman Healthcare, down 4.4% at $11.85. Westpac Banking Corp, down 5.5% at $28.08, led the declines.

‘‘A lot of that is being led out of the Australian market,’’ Mr Williamson said. ‘‘Both a2 and Ryman are widely held by Australian investors’’ and they have suffered with the weaker sentiment in that market, he said.

Spark New Zealand was the heaviest traded stock yesterday with almost 5.4 million changing hands — twice the daily average the past three months. It was up 0.5% at $4.11, a new closing high.

Mr Williamson said it was a good outperformance, relative to the rest of the market, for one of the country’s leading stocks.

Port of Tauranga rose 0.4% to $5.12. The company told investors it is budgeting on another year of strong container and bulk cargo growth, and is planning for expansion of its container berth and optimisation of its container terminal.

Chemist and animal healthcare business Ebos Group rose 1.1% to $20.94 on light volume. Almost 20,700 shares changed hands, less than a third of the daily average the past three months.

Infratil, which reported a 19% increase in halfyear operating earnings and raised its fullyear forecast, fell 1.3% to $3.485.

Mr Williamson said there is a lot of positive news across the company’s investment portfolio, although imputation credits on the firm’s dividends have fallen as the group’s offshore earnings have increased.

Among the smaller players, brewer Moa Group rose 2.4% to 42 cents after signalling strong sales growth will get it close to breaking even in the six months through March.

Broadbased losses to the local indices dragged the Australian sharemarket down following a selloff on Wall Street overnight and weakening oil prices.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed 107.1 points lower, or 1.8%, at 5834.2 yesterday, while the broader All Ordinaries was down 1.74%.

Banking, health and tech stocks were down by more than 2%, while mining and energy lost 2% each.

Markets across Asia were at the mercy of a slide on Wall Street, particularly from the techheavy Nasdaq which fell after Apple shares dropped 4.7%, Bell Direct equities analyst Julia Lee said.

‘‘The key thing is whether or not we’ve seen earnings and margins growth peaking for the tech stocks and I think that’s what is causing the volatility in the markets,’’ she told AAP.

Banks dragged, with Westpac plummeting more than 5% to $26.24 after going exdividend and the Federal Court refused to approve its agreed $35 million fine over lending practices.

Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and ANZ lost between 1.2% and 1.5%, while Macquarie Group was down 2.1% to $119.43. Energy stocks tumbled 1.9%.