NZ stocks: Carter Holt focus for otherwise flat sharemarket

12.30 pm

Carter Holt Harvey provided the main focus for an otherwise flat sharemarket this morning.

"We're just digesting the Carter result now ... The headline result's a loss and they're not paying a dividend, so that on the face of it doesn't look too good," said one dealer.

"Elsewhere in the market it's very very quiet, the turnover's very low and we're just in a holding pattern at the moment."

CHH, New Zealand's largest forest products company, posted a net loss of $19 million for the first half of the year and said there would be no dividend. The stock dropped 7c before clawing back some ground to 153, down 2c.

The New Zealand capital index fell 0.88 points to 1917.40 on subdued turnover worth $13 million.

Boosting the market was New York-listed Telecom which rose 1c to 434.

By late morning, takeover target Contact Energy had risen 1c to 397, Fisher and Paykel was up 10c to 1360, power company Horizon was up 40c to 1300, Natural Gas was up 2c to 120, and the Warehouse was up 10c to 635.

Stocks on the downside included Air NZ A shares, which were down a cent to 29; Auckland Airport, down 7c to 328; Baycorp down 5c to 1165; Sky City down 4c to 1141; Tourism Holdings Ltd down 4c to 113, Australian telco Telstra down 5c to 615, and beverage company Frucor down 1c to 178.

There were 26 rises and 31 falls on 100 stocks traded.

On Wall Street overnight, stocks rallied late in the session on growing optimism about quarterly results from two tech giants.

The Nasdaq composite finished just under its high of the day, rising 25.76 points, or 1.52 per cent, to 1722.07, according to the latest data, while the Dow Jones Industrial average rose 36.61 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 9384.23.

The benchmark Standard and Poor's 500 index rose 7.57 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 1097.55. For the Nasdaq, it was the highest close since September 7, the Friday before the September 11 air attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

- NZPA