NZ stocks: Aussie dual-listed stocks drag market down

Australian dual-listed stocks, depressed by the strong New Zealand dollar, dragged the local sharemarket down today.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index fell 10.13 points to 2757.72 while the NZSX-All capital index fell 1.43 points to 929.85.

Hamilton Hindin Greene broker Grant Williamson described today's market as pathetically quiet.

With the New Zealand dollar rising to a 17 month high of A92.5c today, Australian stocks listed here got cheaper.

Westpac NZ fell 27c to 1714, ANZ fell 13c to 1940, Promina fell 6c to 414, AMP fell 13c to 697, Lion Nathan fell 15c to 755 and Baycorp Advantage fell 5c to 307.

Telstra continued its bad post-result run, dropping 13c to 530, despite the Australian company yesterday posting a record net profit for the June year of A$4.12 billion ($4.54b).

The other big drag on the index was No 3 stock Contact Energy which fell 9c to 584 on news that Genesis Energy is to build a 385 MW gas-fired power station that will be commission in 2006. It dropped as low as 580 at one stage.

UBS Warburg broker Richard Leggat said he did not believe the extra generation capacity was a big issue for Contact but there was a perception it would be a factor.

Market leader Telecom retreated a little further, losing 2c to 597.

Sky City fell 5c to 469. Mr Leggat said there was mild anxiety about the company's result due on August 26.

Fletcher Building's surge in the wake of Wednesday's powerful result continued following some morning profit taking. It rose another 3c to 530, bringing its gains to 10 per cent for the three days. The company said it expects to at least equal the record $240m profit this financial year.

Takeover target DB Breweries was untraded. Yesterday, when it closed at 946, six directors and executives said they plan to accept the 950c a share takeover offer by its majority shareholder Asia Pacific Breweries (APB). APB today said it held 88.51 per cent of DB Breweries' shares.

"The takeover looks to be pretty much a done deal," Mr Williamson told NZPA.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare eased back 4c to 1340, having hit a session high of 1347 in the morning. At yesterday's annual general meeting in Auckland chief executive Mike Daniell said the firm was looking to achieve first-half revenue growth of 20 per cent in US dollars, generating revenue of between US$72m ($111.31m) to US$74m.

Auckland Airport gained 6c to 713 and fellow northern infrastructure company, Ports of Auckland gained 11c to 720 on slim volume.

Tower, yet again the subject of takeover speculation, rose 4c to 202.

Other top 50 movers included Hellaby Holdings, up 12c to 550, Infratil, up 3c to 303, while fishing company Sanford fell 6c to 444.

Toll New Zealand rose 9c to 224 following the sale of a parcel of 2.5 million shares at 225. The broker was Goldman Sachs JBWere but other brokers were in the dark about the buyer.

As if to emphasise the influence of the Australian stocks on the top 50 index, the small stocks index gained a healthy 37.40 points to 7495.77 while the top 10 index fell 4.23 to 1131.03.

Among the smaller stocks, Pacific Retail rose 6c to 210, Vertex rose 3c to 165, as did Wrightson to 154.

There were 51 rises and 55 falls among the 159 stocks traded.

In all, there were 31.9 million shares traded worth $90.2m, of which $31.6m was in Telecom and $10.8m in Contact.

- NZPA