NZ stocks: Top 40 rallies to 2000

The sharemarket popped its head above 2000 points yesterday as interest surrounding Fletcher Energy rubbed off on the rest of the market.

"Fletcher Energy has been the main focus in the market for the third day in a row," Credit Suisse First Boston dealer David Price said.

"What you are starting to see is a spillover effect into other stocks. As the Energy price continues to move up you see people taking the money out and reinvesting across the market which is providing the underlying support."

In a late development, the High Court at Auckland announced after the market closed that it had denied a bid by Peak Petroleum to delay Tuesday's meeting of Fletcher Challenge shareholders, and ruled against allowing Peak due diligence access to Fletcher Energy.

Rejecting Peak's applications, Justice Noel Anderson said it was for the shareholders to decide. He cited "freedom of action in the democratic context" as one reason for his ruling.

Fletcher Energy shares surged 10c to $9.13 by the close of trading yesterday in response to the Shell-Apache consortium's announcement on Thursday that it was increasing its bid.

The NZSE-40 capital index closed up 14.93 points at 2000.56. Turnover was 42.25 million shares, valued at $160.80 million, with $90.84 million of that in Energy.

"The New Zealand market continues to outperform the world," Mr Price said.

"We had a good day against the backdrop of very much weaker markets everywhere and some very ugly performances from telco stocks throughout Europe." Shrugging off that trend, Telecom closed up 4c at $5.30.

Among the second liners, Carter Holt Harvey, led by chief executive Chris Liddell, was a strong performer, up 5c at $1.82 on turnover worth $8.35 million, Lion Nathan closed 6c higher at $4.82, The Warehouse was up 5c at $5.45, Montana gained 10c to $4.05 and Contact Energy closed up 1c at $2.86.

Sky TV and its namesake Sky City also gained. Sky TV closed up 8c at $3.80 on the back of a slightly stronger kiwi dollar, while Sky City added 5c to $9.30.

The kiwi closed at 43.32USc from 43.15c at Thursday's close.

Baycorp, which has experienced choppy trading of late, jumped 45c to $11.30. Another volatile mover of late, Genesis, rose 30c to $5.20.

Advantage Corp fell 9c to $1.26 after posting a much reduced half-year profit on Thursday.

"I think now people want to see the company knuckle down and start delivering results and gain credibility to gain favour again," Mr Price said. "To put it [Advantage's performance] in context, the [US] Nasdaq was down 27 per cent for February. So with the backdrop of that it is always hard for technology issues to perform."

Of the Australian stocks, AMP was up 26c at $24.76, ANZ rose 15c to $19.30 and Telstra closed steady at $7.77.

- NZPA