NZ stocks: Telecom leads market leap out of the blocks for 2005

The sharemarket made a sprint beginning to 2005 today, led from the front by market heavyweight Telecom.

"It's come off the blocks very fast today. It's very encouraging," said First NZ Capital broker Malcolm Davie.

The top 50 index built on last year's 25 percent gain with a 0.75 percent rise in the first session of the year. The NZSX-50 index closed up 22.95 points at a new high of 3087.39, while the NZSX-All capital index closed up 7.67 points at 1015.57.

Telecom gained 10c to 625 and, apart from a brief spurt to 627 in August, its 626 session high today was its highest price since May 2001.

Telecom was sought on the expectation investors will soon be rewarded by some kind of special dividend, said Mr Davie.

"That's freshened up sentiment - that and the fact that it has appeared on a number of recommendation lists this year," said Mr Davie. "It's a very solid-yielding stock and not a bad place to hide in these choppy times."

The rally was broadly based though and on reasonable turnover of over $100 million. With news virtually non-existant, stocks were responding mainly to market sentiment and order flows, brokers said. Where there was weakness, it was mainly on light turnover.

Mr Davie said he was somewhat surprised the market had shown renewed strength given its strong rally last year and Wall Street's weak showing.

Turnover in Telecom was worth over $67m.

Other stocks to particularly prosper included some of last year's laggards - Ports of Auckland rose 15c to 700, Baycorp Advantage, 6c to 340, Fisher & Paykel Appliances 9c to 439, and The Warehouse 8c to 371.

Mainfreight put on 5c to 230 to a new high while one of last year's less heralded stars, Nuplex, closed to within 3c of its high with a 9c gain to 594.

Carpet maker Cavalier fell 14c to 455 and other leaders to buck the trend included Contact Energy, down 3c to 637, Fletcher Building, down 2c to 660, Tenon, down 2c to 218 and NGC, down 4c to 306.

Mooring Systems began this year as it did last year with a healthy 15c rise to 410.

NZOG, among the best of 2004's performers, showed no sign of flagging today with a 4c rise to 108 and another strong performer last year, Promina, rose 20c to 600.

There were 63 stocks closing up compared with 37 falls among the 149 traded.

The small stocks index rose 45.85 points to a new peak of 8723.25 while the top 10 index rose 9.30 points to 1200.83.

- NZPA