KEY POINTS:
Several shares remained unloved in a slightly negative Valentine's Day session on the New Zealand sharemarket today.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index fell 3.5 points, just 0.08 per cent, to 4181.30 on modest turnover of nearly $130 million.
Trading was "a bit more subdued" than usual, with investors focussed on the cost pressures mid-cap companies were facing, said Jeremy Coe, a broker with Goldman Sachs JB Were.
Number one stock Telecom offset the downward trend, rising 9c to 504 on turnover worth $65m, as investors continued to hope to benefit from Telecom's directories sale.
The biggest drag on the index was Fletcher Building 's 25c fall to 1110, albeit on light volume.
The construction and building materials company posted a virtually flat first-half profit and forecast slow growth.
But brokers and analysts said the result was solid and investors had high expectations after a stellar run.
"This stock certainly isn't looking expensive, it's just the good old story continues," Mr Coe said.
Also on the outer was mobile radio company Team Talk, down 6c or 2.2 per cent to 265, after reporting a 15.5 per cent drop in net profit after tax for its December half year.
The other big news of the day was Air NZ, which fell 12c to 205 after the company created new equity to fulfil a convertible notes redemption by Qantas, diluting investors' holdings.
Qantas now owns the equivalent of a 4.2 per cent stake in Air NZ, the first tranche of a failed attempt to take a 22.5 per cent stake in the New Zealand airline in 2002.
The two airlines formally ended all their alliance plans today.
Air NZ was in a "sweet spot" as oil prices fell, tourism started to recover, and domestic travel improved, Mr Coe said.
"There's no reason that sweet spot's over, but certainly an overhang of 44 million shares does put a little bit of a dampener on things."
Skellerup lost a cent to 132 after the company said it had become another victim of the high exchange rate, cutting its December half year profit by 18.6 per cent.
Stocks which found favour on the market today included Nuplex, up 10c to 710; Tower up 5c to 253; Auckland Airport up 6c to 233; and Trustpower up 10c to a new high of 850 following the Prime Minister's commitment yesterday to reducing climate change.
"Trustpower's very much exposed to any carbon regime, it's positive exposure with 100 per cent renewable energy base," Mr Coe said.
"It's just such a great story and so hard to get your hands on any stock."
In contrast, Contact Energy fell 3c to 883, while Fisher & Paykel Appliances closed up 5c to 374, shrugging off a profit downgrade of up to 20 per cent issued last week.
The company is seen as an attractive takeover target, but Mr Coe said it was "a bit of a surprise that you're seeing the stock bounce back to pre-downgrade levels."
Small-cap technology company Rakon fell a cent to 478, following yesterday's 44c jump after a successful share placement to fund the purchase of a British company.
Overall, falls outnumbered rises 57 to 54 on 160 stocks traded.
- NZPA