NZ stocks: Shares drift lower as market takes breather

The New Zealand sharemarket's benchmark index today drifted lower from yesterday's closing high, as a number of leading stocks gave up recent gains.

At 5pm the NZSX-50 gross index was 7.17 points or 0.27 per cent lower at 2693.54, while the NZSX all capital index was 1.98 points lower at 905.87.

First NZ Capital research manager Barry Lindsay said it was a rather featureless session with a modest value of stock traded.

He said the market had showed a slightly negative bias all day and was "just sort of taking a breather".

"It just seems to be going through a little bit of a consolidation phase particularly in some stocks after a good run."

Total turnvover was worth $89.45 million with 43 rises and 50 falls among the 149 stocks traded.

Fletcher Building which rose 23c in the previous two sessions today finished 2c lower at 480.

"Stocks don't run on at that rate forever, probably a little bit of profit taking," Mr Lindsay said.

Market leader Telecom which finished a cent lower at 587 accounted for the greatest proportion of the day's turnover at $42.98 millio.

Mr Lindsay said AMP NZ Office Trust saw unusually high turnover today of $6.58 million. Most of that was down to a single institutional crossing. With substantial trades yesterday, the trust had turned over 2.6 per cent of its units on issue in two days.

"That sort of volume is substantially greater than the value of units that normally trade in one month," Mr Lindsay said.

Further down the board Software of Excellence gained 15c to 165 after announcing it had purchased a US competitor.

The company said the purchase made it the world's major player in the provision of dental software.

"Quite a dramatic move for a small company to have extended to that extent," Mr Lindsay said.

Elsewhere, shares in Salvus Strategic Investments closed at 90c on their first day of trading.

The stock was sold to investors for $1 apiece . In the IPO, investors received one warrant with each share they bought. The warrants, which can be redeemed for stock in 2007, traded today at 14 cents, giving a combined value of 104.

Elsewhere, Air NZ was up a cent to 42, Auckland International Airport down 5c to 676, BayCorp Advantage up 3c to 336, Blue Chip was down 10c to 130, Carter Holt Harvey down a cent to 203, Cavalier Corp up 8c to 498, Contact Energy down a cent to 577, Fisher & Paykel Appliances was down 9c to 450, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare down 8c to 1306, Independent Newspapers down 6c to 475, Michael Hill down 5c to 589, NGC Holdings down 5c to 293, Richmond down 5c to 315, Sky City down 2c to 480, Sky TV down 7c to 522, Steel & Tube Holdings down 6c to 416, Tower up 3c to 174, TrustPower up 15c to 475, and The Warehouse up cent to 414.

- NZPA