NZ stocks: NZ index at 11-month high, but market fails to fire

The New Zealand market had a quiet day with little corporate action to spur investors into life.

The benchmark NZ50 gross index closed up 3.25 points, or 0.16 per cent, at an 11-month high of 2048.02, while the top-10 index was almost flat, up 0.01 per cent at 931.10.

Topping turnover of just 19.11 million stocks, valued at $47.36 million, was Telecom's 3.39 million stocks worth $17.26 million.

Suzanne Kinnaird of Forsyth Barr said the market saw low volume, "even for a Monday".

"We didn't see a lot of direction from offshore markets on Friday night, and I suspect that's added to the lack of interest in the market today.

"We saw a good performance from Sky City Casino, up 15c (at 842). It's a stock that's probably come under a bit of selling pressure in the last few months with all the worries about severe acute respiratory syndrome and anti-smoking legislation, and I think people are putting those things in perspective.

"Possibly also it's a good yielding story, and interest rates are low and look like they might go lower," Ms Kinnaird said.

Sky TV ended up 7c at 437, its highest since June 2002, after upgrading its profit guidance last week to break even.

The stock may also have benefited from news today that Australian media company John Fairfax Holdings has confirmed it will pay $1.19 billion for Independent Newspapers Ltd's (INL) New Zealand newspaper assets.

INL, up 5c at 525, owns two-thirds of Sky TV.

Fairfax has also decided not to sell the INL mastheads to finance the deal and lease them back, and instead will take on $A702 million ($NZ800 million) of debt.

Rail operator Tranz Rail closed up 6c at 84 on moderate volume of 2.62 million stocks.

"We saw another strong performance out of Tranz Rail today, and I guess that's still a lot of positioning over the whole takeover situation."

Tranz Rail said today that Australian suitor Toll Holdings, which upped its stake to 10.1 per cent on Friday after RailAmerica dropped its bid, had no inside information.

Auckland International Airport rose 6c to 552 as investors continued to view favourably the Government decision on Friday not to impose price controls on metropolitan airports.

"One of the risks for Auckland Airport was Commerce Commission interference, and now that that's out of the way certainly it's been what the market needed to kick-start that stock again," she said.

Wellington Airport's two-thirds owner Infratil closed up 4c at 59.

Market leader Telecom was down 4c at 507, Carter Holt Harvey lost 2c to 159, Fletcher Building gained 2c to 350, The Warehouse was up 6c at 451, and Promina rose 2c to 164.

Of the three stocks that were ex dividend, Contact Energy (ex 5.5c per share) performed well to close down 3c at 465, DB Breweries (ex 13cps) was down 14c at 651, and Restaurant Brands (ex 5.5cps) fell 5c to 137.

There were 51 rises and 32 falls among the 131 shares traded.

In Wall St on Friday the Dow Jones industrial average finished up 7.36 points, or 0.09 per cent, at 8601.38; and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index edged up 1.35 points, or 0.14 per cent, at 933.22.

The US and British markets are on holiday today.

- NZPA