NZ Stocks: Sharemarket makes mild rebound

12pm

The New Zealand sharemarket made a mild recovery from yesterday's hammering but brokers said there was little doubt investors were still locked in a bear market.

The NZSE-40 capital index was up 8.53 points at 11.45am to 1879.09 after it was knocked down 1.7 per cent yesterday to its lowest level since the post-Setpember 11, 2001 trough.

Worries of war in Iraq and a stuttering international economic recovery are throttling equities worldwide, brokers said.

"We have been somewhat immune from in it in New Zealand but the severity of the bear market globally cannot be understated," JB Were's Murray Rutherford said.

He noted the German stock market was down 14 per cent this year and had halved in value in the past year. Similarly, the French market was down 12 per cent this year and 37 per cent in the past 12 months.

The NZSE-40 capital index is now down 3.5 per cent this year and 10 per cent over the past 12 months.

Today's bounce was led by Telecom, which picked up 5c to 429 having being smacked 16c down yesterday. Trading in Telecom made up $13 million of the 31.4 million total market turnover.

It was also helped by AMP, which rose off yesterday's record low, rising 15c to 840, despite announcing a record net loss of A$896 million ($971.27 million) and warning that the group's profit would fall again in 2003 if equity markets continued to slide.

The Warehouse, another stock to take a beating yesterday, recovered 9c today to 540.

Stock of the moment, Sky City Entertainment, picked up another 12c to 857 after it jumped 15c against the weak market yesterday on the back of its strong half year profit result. Analysts said the $60 million share buy-back announced and revisions upward for full year profit forecasts were behind the share price rise.

Tourism Holdings was up 3c to 110 after announcing a slightly better than expected half year profit of $5.2 million It said it had postponed a balance sheet restructuring due to international uncertainties, which brokers said would make the operating environment difficult for the tourism company.

Port of Tauranga, was un-traded on 420 after announcing a very strong profit as expected. Its half year profit was $14.5 million was up 18 per cent.

Auckland Airport rose 10c to 540 ahead of its half-year result tomorrow while Air New Zealand, which also reports tomorrow, was up 1c to 52c.

Independent Newspapers rose 10c to 310 following after yesterday's readership survey figures that were seen as a good result. It lifted 4c yesterday against the weak market.

Carter Holt Harvey fell 2c to 164, depressed by the gloomy outlook for cyclical stocks while Fletcher Building fell 3c to 347.

Axa Asia fell 13c to 242, Designer Textiles rose 4c to 104 and Briscoe rose 4c to 235.

There were 30 rises and 33 falls among the 109 stocks traded.

- NZPA