NZ stocks: Leaders shrug off US woes

The sharemarket finished strongly yesterday, seemingly oblivious to the rough seas that swept Wall St overnight.

The Dow fell 1.3 per cent and the Nasdaq 2.5 per cent to bring its losses in February to over 22 per cent after US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan crushed investors' hopes of an early cut in interest rates. Instead, he adopted a wait-and-see approach to the question of whether the Fed might lower rates before its next scheduled meeting on March 20.

The New Zealand top 40 index ignored the US plight, however, closing up 13.60 points at 1985.63 on turnover of 44.18 million shares worth $216.82 million.

The local market appeared to take its lead from Australia, which has traded well in the last couple of days.

"We have had a reasonable Aussie market in the last few days and I think there was a little bit of rollover here," ABN Amro head of institutional dealing Nigel Scott said.

Both leading and mid-cap stocks contributed to the market's rise.

On the leader front, Telecom closed up 11c at $5.26 on turnover worth $22.40 million, while its transtasman rival Telstra gained 12c to $7.77.

Among the second line stocks, Fisher & Paykel rose 5c to $8.65, Carter Holt Harvey rose 2c to $1.77, Fletcher Building rose 3c to $2.04, and United Networks added 24c at $8.55.

In all there were 44 rises against 41 falls among the 141 stocks traded.

On the downside, Fletcher Energy again dominated, falling back 2c to $9.03 as a legal row looms over Greymouth Petroleum's counter bid to the Shell-Apache offer.

The 11th hour bidder said it would head to court to ensure its proposal has a chance.





Advantage, whose biggest shareholder is Eric Watson with 18 per cent, slid 10c to $1.35 as investors reacted badly to a slump in the technology company's half-year profit - down to $386,000 from $2.16 million. The company also announced chief executive Greg Cross is to step down. Its shares have slumped from $5.65 last April.

Brewer Lion Nathan also lost ground, shedding 4c to $4.76, Genesis slid 10c to $4.90, and Wellington Drive Technologies fell back 12c to 68c after stepping up from the secondary board to the main board on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, PDL rose a further 15c to $6.45 as Singapore's Clipsal Industries follows France's Schneider Electric in building a stake in the company.

Schneider has 18 per cent as it bids for 19.9 per cent, and Clipsal more than 5 per cent.

Sky City jumped 13c to $9.25 and WestpacTrust put on 30c to $15.35.

The New Zealand dollar remained rangebound yesterday with little dramatic action evident after Mr Greenspan spoke to the US Senate overnight.

The kiwi closed at 43.15USc - a 17 point rise from Wednesday's local close of 42.98c.

- NZPA