NZ stocks: Fletcher Energy hit as stocks weaken

Reasonable volumes were traded on the New Zealand sharemarket yesterday but the key NZSE-40 ended the day down 22 points.

Total turnover was 48.5 million stocks valued at $106 million.

Nigel Scott, head of institutional sales at ABN Amro, said movements in the currency market appeared to have hit the main mover, Fletcher Energy.

It ended down 39c at $8.74, on 2.9 million shares traded valued at $25.5 million, mainly as a result of the 16 per cent fall in the price of Capstone Turbines to $US20.50.

The rise of the kiwi dollar cuts the value of the Shell-Apache bid for Energy. Capstone's heavy fall recently has raised questions about the viability of the new Fletcher company Rubicon.

"A major influence on the day was probably the stronger currency," said Mr Scott.

"Possibly the Australian dollar rise was on the selling of National Australia Bank's Bank of Michigan, quite a big transaction,"

NAB sold its US subsidiary, Michigan National Corp, for $US2.75 billion ($6.94 billion) to ABN Amro, the Dutch banking giant.

The NZSE-40 capital index fell 22.14 points, or 1.11 per cent, to 1971.67.

The market closed on its lows after interest dissipated from mid-morning.

"That could be in line with activity [related] to Thanksgiving. Fund managers and dealers go home for the four days - that does have an influence. In the US, Thursday markets will be closed and Friday will be a half day," Mr Scott said.

Telecom held up through the day, drifting off to finish down 11c at $5.69, while profit-taking was evident in Carter Holt Harvey and The Warehouse, which ended down 6c at $1.73 and 13c at $6.35 respectively. The Warehouse annual meeting is today.

"On the other side of the coin, there was strong movement in AMP, which has had a pretty good week. It was up 25c, to trade up to $25 at one stage," Mr Scott said. AMP ended at $24.85.

Contact Energy rose to $2.90 during the day but finished unchanged at $2.85, despite reporting a drop in profit to $96.98 million, well down on last year's $155.39 million but ahead of analysts' forecasts.

The consensus of analysts' forecasts, said Barra Global, was for an $87.3 million net profit.

Edison Mission has increased its stake in Contact by 0.7 per cent to 40.7 per cent but would not say whether it intended buying more shares.

Telstra was down 15c at $8.50, Fletcher Forest rights lost 0.5c to 0.7c, and Baycorp lost 10c to $11.

Auckland Airport rose 6c to $3, Genesis gained 9c to $7.34, Montana rose 1c to $3.81 and PDL put on 13c to $4.00. New Capital Markets listing Cabletalk saw 15c knocked off its price to 75c on its second day of trading.

- NZPA