Shares: Telecom up 4c on quiet day

File Photo

The New Zealand sharemarket made some small gains today but there was little in the way of news to direct investors.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 5.38 points at 3321.77, having slipped 2.8 points yesterday.

Investors continued trying to assess the impact of a vine-killing bacteria, PSA, which has been found on a small number of North Island kiwifruit vines.

Agriculture officials scrambled to determine the strain of the disease which was found at a Te Puke orchard growing gold kiwifruit.

A virulent strain of Psa has proved to be a serious issue for growers in Italy, but strains in Korea and Japan have not been such a problem.

The event saw trading in securities of small-cap stocks Satara Cooperative Group and Seeka Kiwifruit Industries halted yesterday.

The halts were lifted before the start of trading today, but no transactions were reported for either company. The stocks have not traded for more than a week.

Among the bigger stocks, Fletcher Building rose 2c to 815, Contact Energy lost a cent to 595, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare gained 4c to 296, and Telecom was up 4c at 212.

Auckland Airport, which announced a significant rise in capacity to Asia, lost a cent to 214. Vector was down a cent at 243 and Infratil rose a cent to 184.

Port of Tauranga failed to regain the 6c lost early in the session and closed at 740, Freightway was down 3c at 305, Pumpkin Patch shed 3c to 190 and NZX was down 3c at 155.

Discount retailer The Warehouse was up 6c at 385, Trustpower rose 3c to 730, and Mainfreight gained a cent to 741.

The small move for the New Zealand index contrasted with the 0.9 per cent decline for Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index, to 4734. Japan's Nikkei share average fell 0.7 per cent following yesterday's three-month high.

Earlier in the United States, stocks pulled back from a rally that brought indexes to their highest level since the peak of the financial crisis in September 2008.

Investors were thought to be pausing as concerns about European sovereign debt were reignited.

- NZPA