NZ stocks: Fresh closing high tops good week

6.00pm

The sharemarket ended a good week today by finishing on a fresh closing high.

By the 4pm close the benchmark NZSX50 had risen 7.921 points or 0.363 per cent to 2188.3 while the NZSX40 capital index finished 3.755 points or 0.177 per cent higher at 2130.77.

Turnover was $108.76 million on 34.24 million shares traded.

Broker Ken Allen of Direct Broking said the market had enjoyed "a pretty strong day on good volume across the board".

Among stocks to rise today was the Warehouse which is continuing make a strong recovery from recent weakness, it rose 16c to 530 today.

Telecom also had a good day, rising 3c to 524 on news it had signed a $120 million network management deal with French communications equipment maker Alcatel.

Telecom was as usual the most heavily traded stock on the market with 8.68 million shares worth $45.28 million changing hands.

Meanwhile, Mr Allen said Fletcher Building was "picking up a bit more steam" today.

"I think the building stocks in New Zealand are probably reacting to the announcement of government funding for the Auckland infrastructure and a general view that the Government will fund more infrastructure spending in New Zealand as time passes.

Fletcher Building was up 7c to 375 by the market's close.

Fletcher Forest stock was still going up today, rising 3c to 116 on news earlier this week it is to sell its entire North Island forest assets.

Market newcomer Promina was another company to rise today, gaining 7c to finish at 272.

"There's been another re-rating of Promina from out of Australia" Mr Allen said.

"It's a good quality stock and these type of stocks are in demand, they're good defensive stocks," he said.

Mr Allen said that overall, the market had enjoyed a good week.

"There's been some pretty solid buying of the leaders and I think that's obviously related to interest rate falls. That's prompted a lot of buying of some of these yield stocks."

Among stocks to rise today were: Auckland Airport up 7c to 600, BayCorp Advantage up a cent to 167, Briscoe up 2c to 202, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 5c to 1155, Guinness Peat Group up 2c to 155, Hellaby Holdings up 2c to 414, Infratil up 2c to 203, Rubicon up a cent to 72, Ryman Healthcare up 7c to 175, Telstra up 3c to 512, and Westfield up 2c to 415.

Stocks to fall today included: AMP down 6c to 600, Cavalier down 5c to 490, Contact Energy down 2c to 488, Fisher & Paykel Appliances down 10c to 1310, Independent Newspapers Ltd down 4c to 423, Lion Nathan down 14c to 646, Mainfreight down a cent to 130, Michael Hill down 3c to 447, NGC Holdings down 2c to 167, NZ Refining Co down 4c to 1670, Owens Group down a cent to 97, Ports of Auckland down 12c to 772, PowerCo down a cent to 172, Restaurant Brands down a cent to 143, Sanford down 2c to 511, Sky City down a cent to 935, Sky TV down 6c to 451, Tourism Holdings Ltd down 2c to 113, and Tower Group down 2c to 152,

There were 44 rises and 51 falls among 138 stocks traded.

- NZPA