SkyCity and Contact gain on positive day for NZX

Photo / Kenny Rodger

The New Zealand sharemarket managed to post modest gains yesterday as the Australian market traded lower.

The NZX-50 index closed up 6.51 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 3262.35. As the New Zealand market closed the Australian market was down around 1 per cent.

"The local market held up well in spite of weakness offshore and considering a lack of domestic news to focus on," said Grant Williamson, director of Hamilton Hindin Greene.

He said one theme of the day was that investors were chasing yield on the expectation that interest rates will stay low.

SkyCity rose 4c to $2.92, Tower rose 2c to $1.86 and Vector rose 2c to $2.32.

Fletcher Building shares fell 7c to $8.28, having ended down 3c on Friday even though it was announced that subsidiary Fletcher Construction will manage building repairs for 50,000 houses damaged in the Canterbury earthquake.

Oyster Bay Wines was untraded after majority owner Delegat's gave notice of a takeover offer at $1.80 a share with a scrip alternative.

Williamson said the stock had an asset backing of $3 a share in its last annual report so the offer looked to be good timing on Delegat's part. Delegat's shares rose 11c to $1.75.

Telecom was unchanged at $2.07 and Contact Energy rose 3c to $5.70.

Mainfreight rose 5c to $7.05 and Freightways rose 3c to $2.99. The Warehouse rose 4c to $3.94 and Hellaby rose 1c to $1.95.

Tourism Holdings, which issued a profit warning late yesterday, fell 3c to 88c.

Auckland Airport rose 2c to $2.08 and Port of Tauranga rose 7c to $7.17.

Sanford, an exporter, rose 4c to $4.10 on a day the NZ dollar was weak.

Trustpower fell 2c to $7.30 and Nuplex fell 2c to $3.28.

In the US on Friday (local time), a surging quarter from Google sent the Nasdaq Composite Index up over 1 per cent, while uncertainty over major banks' exposure to foreclosure losses dragged the Dow Jones industrial average lower. The Dow dropped 0.3 per cent to 11,062.78, the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.2 per cent to 1176.19, and the Nasdaq rose 1.4 per cent to 2468.77.

For the week, the Dow rose 0.5 per cent, the S&P 500 added 0.9 per cent and the Nasdaq gained 2.8 per cent. NZPA