NZ stocks: Market flat, leaders rebound

The New Zealand sharemarket received little inspiration from offshore and kicked off the week in a leisurely manner.

After opening slightly up, by mid-morning the benchmark NZSE-40 capital index was flat at 1913.99, on light turnover of 5.63 million stocks valued at $12.0 million.

Several market leaders rebounded today after being sold off at the end of last week. Discount retailer The Warehouse rose 9c to 560 after closing at a seven-month low on Friday, Carter Holt Harvey was up 1c at 172 and Sky TV was up 5c at 355, while Telecom was unchanged at 445.

Baycorp Advantage rose 1c to 201, NGC was up 2c at 148, and Blis was up 2c at 40.

After losing 9c on Friday Contact Energy shed another 6c today to 445, Auckland Airport lost 2c to 535, AMP was down 5c at 850, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 4c to 971, Sky City was down 2c at 833, and Fletcher Forests shed 1c to 106.

There were 33 falls and 24 rises on the 98 stocks traded.

Wall St saw a rally on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 103.15 points, or 1.30 per cent, at 8018.11; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index up 11.07 points, or 1.32 per cent, at 848.17; and the Nasdaq Composite Index up 17.79 points, or 1.34 per cent, to end at 1349.02.

- NZPA