NZ stocks: Afternoon buying sees market close higher

Some late afternoon buying, particularly in No. 2 stock Carter Holt Harvey, helped lift the sharemarket into the positive today.

The benchmark NZSX-50 ended 7.76 points ahead at 2464.75 while the NZSX-40 capital index finished 4.32 up at 2292.16.

Volume remained light as it has done all week, with only 24.2 million shares traded worth $55 million.

Among the 138 stocks traded, 56 rose and 36 fell.

"The driver of the market was Carter Holt, which continues to be strong," said Goldman Sachs JBWere broker Joe Gallagher. "There is speculation that there is good interest in its tissue business and that it will be sold above the book value that Carters have got for it."

Carter Holt gained 3c to 193 on turnover worth $3.9 million.

Contact Energy continued its erratic journey, albeit with an uptrend. It rose 8c to 548, helped along by a spike up in power prices after a major South Island power line was blown down.

The Warehouse continued its good run, rising 4c to 537. Mr Gallagher said that despite some electronic data pointing to strong sales over the holiday, there needed to be caution until information on margins was out.

Michael Hill International, up strongly this week, lost 7c to 490, while Briscoe fell 2c to 171.

Independent Newspapers had a good day, rising 9c to 515, while its two thirds-owned Sky TV fell 5c to 535.

This year's star performer, AX listed Mooring Systems, put on another 15c to 260 to bring its gains for the week to over 40 per cent. The company said that the explanation may come from the completion of a contract with Patrick Corp in Australia that had proved its new QuaySailor docking system.

The stock of the exchange itself is another strong performer this year, with NZX rising another 11c to 585.

Meanwhile, Ports of Auckland fell 15c to 780.

Market leader Telecom dipped to 535 in the morning but finished unchanged on 538 on volume worth $27.6 million.

Fletcher Building, which lost 19c yesterday, fell another 5c today to 408. This was in spite of another set of strong building data out from Statistics New Zealand today.

Among the thinner traded stocks to rise today were: Repco, 6c to 296, Broadway, 4c to 79, Cabletalk, 3c to 25 and Nuhaka, 49c to 525 on a parcel of just 300 shares.

On the downside, AMP fell 10c to 560 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare 10c to 1250.

Tourism company THL rose 4c to 158, despite the ever-rising kiwi dollar.

Mr Gallagher said the currency may prove a dampener for a number of stocks.

"At some stage, anything involved with manufacting or exporting is going to start to struggle. Potentially, it will put further pressure on the Reserve Bank not to raise interest rates and that will have an immediate impact on a number of stocks.

- NZPA