NZ stocks: Holidays take heat out of shares

12.00pm

Holidays in Auckland and Australia saw quiet morning trade shave small margins off the New Zealand sharemarket's key indices today.

By 11.30am the NZSX-50 gross index was 3.44 points, or 0.14 per cent lower, at 2499.81, while the NZSX-40 capital index was 2.64 points, or 0.11 per cent lower, at 2322.07.

Turnover was $21.64 million with 30 rises and 20 falls on 105 stocks traded.

Auckland Anniversary Day and Australia Day holidays meant activity was muted.

"It's just sort of meandering along," Direct Broking's Bernie Kupidura said.

Leading stock Telecom accounted for $14.67 million of the morning's turnover and the telco gained a cent to 550.

Recent market darlings Carter Holt Harvey and Contact Energy were both down, albeit on slim turnover.

Carter Holt was down 5c to 209. Mr Kupidura said Carter Holt's dip was likely to be profit-taking, "and newspaper articles about when the forests are going to be sold and whether there's going to be full value taken out in the near term".

All eyes will be on Carter Holt's fourth quarter result on Thursday with watchers hoping the company will give more information on plans to sell its tissue business and forest assets.

Contact was down 4c to 566. "It's probably just the day on overseas markets where the US was down a little bit on the weekend," Mr Kupidura said. "So it's just a little bit of profit taking and a little bit of negativity with nobody wanting to trade."

Other stocks to move in early trade included: Cavalier Corp down 2c to 538, Fletcher Building up 2c to 403, GRD up 5c to 245, NZ Refining Co down 10c to 1640, Sky City up a cent to 462, Steel & Tube Holdings up 2c to 388, Tranz Rail down 2c to 150, and the Warehouse up 4c to 519.

- NZPA