NZ stocks: Airport shines on otherwise dull market

12.00pm

Auckland Airport continued to shine on an otherwise dull New Zealand sharemarket this morning.

Auckland Airport announced on Friday it was mulling the return of $212 million in capital to shareholders in the spring and that sent its shares 13c higher. Today, the stock rose another 13c to a new record high of 484.

The local market was initially undamaged by an ugly session on Wall Street on Friday where the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 3 per cent and the Dow Jones industrial average lost 1 per cent and telecom stocks were savaged.

However, by 11.30am the NZSE-40 Capital Index was off 6.09 points to 2050.22 on very light volume of $10 million.

Telecom held firm at 491 after rising 3c on Friday in the wake of its well received third quarter result.

Number 2 stock Carter Holt Harvey was down 3c at 182.

Richmond was up 5c to 245 afer initially being down 10c.

Baycorp Avantage, which has taken a hammering in the last month, was up 9c to 420.

There were few other moves of note. AMP was down 20c at a new low for the year of 1980, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 8c to 920, Independent Newspapers was up 3c at 366, Sky City was down 6c at 600, Software of Excellence was down 7c at 227, and The Warehouse was down 2c at 721.

There were 18 rises and 15 falls among the 73 stocks traded.

- NZPA