NZ stocks: Market keeps head above water

Telecom helped the sharemarket stay above water in moring trading today.

Telecom was up 4c to 614 at 11.45am, helping the benchmark index NZSX-50 index to be 1.57 points up at 3065.31. The NZSX-All capital index was 1.10 points stronger at 987.30.

Turnover was reasonable at $40 million with nearly half of that in Telecom. Yesterday, some $72.8m of Telecom shares changed hands. There was over $8m of Telstra shares traded today. It was unchanged on 547.

Restaurant Brands responded to an improved result from the fast food operator. Its shares jumped 7 per cent, or 9c, to 134 after it posted a 33 per cent rise in its February year profit to $10.7 million. The company said it expects to maintain its sales and profit improvement in the current year depite increased costs and short-term profit pressure due to refurbishment of KFC stores.

"In total, the company expects to produce a slightly improved profit result (excluding non trading items) for the new financial year.", the company said.

The local market was in step with Wall Street where US blue-chip stocks ended modestly higher, helped by a dip in crude oil prices and gains by financial stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed 27.56 points up at 10,486.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 2.68 points to end at 1,184.07. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index lost just 0.18 of a point to finish at 1,999.14.

Locally, there were fell moves more than 5c. Insurer Axa Asia Pacific was down 20 at 440, fellow insurer Tower was down 3c to 185 while debt collector Baycorp was down 5c to 311.

Steel & Tube recovered 5c of its recent losses to be on 465.

No.2 stock Contact Energy backed up Telecom with a 3c gain to 670 as did No.3 stock Fletcher Building with a 3c rise to 656.

Lyttelton Port, which appears to have settled its industrial problems, was up 4c at 176.

Rarely traded TeamTalk was up 14c at 250 on turnover of just 400 shares.

The Warehouse was down 2c at 384 while NZ Refining was up 30c at 3480.

There were 26 stocks up and 29 down among the 105 traded in the first quarter of an hour.

- NZPA