NZ stocks: Wall Street rally fails to fire NZ sharemarket

12.00pm

A strong Wall Street rally overnight failed to fire the New Zealand sharemarket higher today after it closed yesterday close to a 5-3/4 year high.

The leaders dragged the market down with the NZSX-50 index dropping 8.95 points to 2467.87 by 11.30am. The old benchmark NZSX-40 capital index was 7.35 at 2295.40, having yesterday held above 2300, which until this year has not been seen since May 1998.

Local market heavyweight Telecom was a negative influence with a 5c fall to 538 and No.2 stock, Carter Holt Harvey, had a 3c fall, to 194.

Volume, as it has been all this year, was pathetic with just 8.6 million shares, worth $24.2 million.

The technology sector helped lift Wall Street as investors anticipated strong earnings in the coming days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 28.81 points (0.28 per cent) to 10,487.70, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rallied 25.19 points (1.21 per cent) to 2,112.11 at the closing bell.

Here, Contact Energy continued its upward path, rising 1c to 553. It had risen to 555, just 5c off an all-time high. It has been a beneficiary of an interuption to South Island power flows this week caused by winds bringing down a main transmission line. The line was restored yesterday after a three-day outage.

DB Breweries rose 10c to a new high of 825. The company said last week that beer sales had been strong through the hot summer and it was picking up market share.

Mooring Systems, which has rocketed up more than 40 per cent this year, fell back 10c to 240.

The Warehouse, another of this year's gainers, albeit erratically, today fell 5c to 534.

Another of the upwardly mobile this year, NZX, gained another 10c to 620 a new high for the exchange's owner. It is now up 44 per cent on its $4.30 listing price in June.

Other movers today included, NZ Refining, up 20c to 1560, Ebos, down 5c to 340, Powerco, up 4c to 206, Port of Tauranga, down 5c to 431, Software of Excellence, down 10c to 160 and Westfield, up 7c to 415.

There were 26 rises matched by 25 falls among just 109 stocks traded.

- NZPA