NZ stocks: Sharemarket dips during morning trading

12.50 pm

Following on from Tuesday's slight rise, the New Zealand sharemarket opened higher today, after poor showings on world markets overnight.

Apart from Wall Street, all the major markets closed with double or three-figure losses.

"Our market was very quiet again at the opening," Geoff Brown at J P Morgan Chase said.

"Volumes remain reasonably light, the index is up slightly and Telecom's the major part of that, as it continues the improvement from the five dollar region of yesterday but on the reverse, Carter Holt is down after yesterday's results," he said.

The market slipped slightly during the morning, however, and at 11am the NZSE-40 index stood at 2037.58 - up 2.85 points - or 0.14 per cent - from last night's close but down from an opening 2038.30.

The NZSE-SCI capital index was 1.23 points - or 0.02 per cent - higher, at 5511.35 but down from the opening 5512.17.

Turnover at 11am was 7.77 million shares worth $18.98 million, of which Telecom provided $4.64 million, Lion Nathan $1.91 million, Sky City $1.89 million and Telstra $1.02 million and of the 113 shares traded 33 rose and 27 fell.

Market heavyweight Telecom - which has a 22 per cent weighting in the Top 40 index - was a cent higher at 515, after an earlier 520 and Telstra gained a cent to 640, on turnover of 160,000 shares.

Lion Nathan was unchanged at 550 on turnover of 348,000 shares and Montana Group was steady at 450.

The New Zealand Government's takeovers' regulator ruled - early on Tuesday - that a two-tiered offer by Lion, for winemaker Montana, breached recently introduced takeover rules and banned it from buying Montana shares under its offer for 21 days.

Timber giant, Carter Holt Harvey, was a cent lower at 171. Yesterday it lifted the lid on a $34 million first-quarter loss and laid the blame squarely on weak markets and a global economic slowdown.

Although analysts had expected a tough result, the extent of it had not been widely predicted.

Included was a $25 million hit for the mothballing of the Mataura paper mill and a small Australian sawmill.

Chief executive Chris Liddell said the chance of either re-opening was "remote".

Fletcher Forests was unchanged at 30 but Fletcher Building rose 4c to 265. Its price has risen steadily in July and is up 10.5 per cent so far as the company benefits from the sales of non-core assets.

Fletcher spin-off, forestry and bio-technology firm, Rubicon - which listed on the exchange in March - was a cent higher at a record 77, before its $60 million share buy-back.

Auckland International Airport was unchanged at 350, Contact Energy gained a cent to 321 but Trustpower lost a cent to 325.

After being untraded in New York overnight, Tranz Rail was a couple of cents lower at 405, compared with a 2001 high of 428 in March and a low of 350 in June.

Casino operator, Sky City was unchanged at 1180, Natural Gas Corp was a cent higher at 91 and WestpacTrust picked up 20c to 1600.

Air NZ's domestic A shares were unchanged at 105 but the freely held B shares dropped a couple of cents to 138.

Fisher and Paykel was 15c higher at 1280 and Brierley Investments was unchanged at 66.

Meat exporter Richmond was 5c higher at 260, pay TV operator Sky TV rose a cent to 321 and part owner, Independent Newspapers, was steady at 385.

Frucor Beverages Group was 3c higher at 167 after it announced today that unaudited revenues for the June year grew 27 per cent to $228.4 million.

Frucor - which listed a year ago - lowered its profit forecast in May by 35 per cent to $11.4 million and said sales in Britain would probably be significantly below forecast.

The Warehouse rose 4c to 549, Waste Management was unchanged at 340, financial-services company, Tower, rose a couple of cents to 513, AMP shed 6c to 2530 and Baycorp lost 6c to 1255.

Stocks rose on Wall Street on Tuesday after investors looked beyond the wave of dreary quarterly-earnings' reports and focused on upbeat forecasts.

The blue-chip Dow Jones average index of 30 industrials rose 134.27 points - or 1.28 per cent - to close at 10,606.39 - its highest for almost a month.

The broader, Standard and Poor's 500 composite index closed 11.99 points - or 1.00 per cent - higher, at 1214.44 and the tech-rich Nasdaq composite index rose 38.20 points - or 1.88 per cent - to close at 2067.32.

- NZPA