Telecom, Fletcher Building make modest gains

The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly today, outperforming many markets in Asia, though volume was thin.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 14.2 points, or 0.432 per cent, at 3301.661. Turnover was worth $70.2 million. There were 41 rises and 31 falls among the 113 stocks traded.

"Our market had a pretty reasonable day given overseas markets were pretty mixed," said Ross Cuthbert, adviser at Craigs Investment Partners. "Volume wasn't massive, it was a Friday sort of volume," he said.

Telecom gained 1c early to 219, adding to its 3c gain yesterday.

Fletcher Building closed up 1c at 844 but traded as low as 839. Mr Cuthbert said yesterday's announcement of job losses and a production reduction in its Australian insulation business was not material and did not alter the earnings outlook.

Turners Auctions rose 14c, or 9.59 per cent, to 160, though it was on small turnover. The company told shareholders at its annual meeting yesterday that it was well placed for a recovery but the used vehicle market remained challenging.

NZ Refining fell 6c to 375 after easily seeing off a challenge from a shareholder at its annual meeting yesterday.

Allied Farmers rose 0.3c to 8.6c, a move put down to interest from speculative investors.

AMP Office Trust rose 1c to 75 after reporting a higher distributable nine month profit. Property companies continue to wait to see what the Government has decided to do on tax issues in the May budget.

Property for Industry rose 3c to 118, and ING Property Trust rose 1c to 75.

Nuplex rose 10c to 336, Contact Energy rose 4c to 622, SkyCity rose 5c to 328 and Restaurant Brands rose 4c to 231.

NZOG rose 2c to 154. OceanaGold was unchanged at 350.

Auckland Airport rose 2c to 210 and Air NZ was unchanged at 137.

Retailer Kirkcaldie & Stains was untraded on 285, after reporting first half net profit up 50.4 per cent to $725,000, despite a 4.2 per cent fall in revenues to $21.96 million.

In the United States, stocks staged a late-day comeback as strong quarterly profits from consumer bellwethers such as Starbucks Corp outweighed worries about Greece's shaky finances.

First-quarter earnings are on track to set a record for the percentage of companies beating estimates.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 0.1 per cent to 11,134.29, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.2 per cent to 1208.67, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.6 per cent to 2519.07.

- NZPA