NZ stocks: Market rallies for 7th successive session

12.30pm

The sharemarket's benchmark index pushed to a fresh high this morning as the market gained for the seventh successive session as market leader Telecom rallied.

The NZSX-50 gross index was up 8.71 points at 2876.29 at 11.45am while the NZSX-All capital index was up 3.81 at 952.39. The market is up 3.5 per cent since the rally began.

Turnover was worth $36.9 million, with 55 rises and 18 falls among the 128 stocks traded to date.

The local market was strongly underpinned by heavyweight Telecom, which was up 6c to 591.

It reports its first quarter result tomorrow and analysts will be watching to see how much expenses have ballooned and whether it can sustain its recent revenue growth.

Wall Street staged a modest rally in the wake of George W Bush's victory in the United States presidential election.

Goldman Sachs JBWere broker Joe Gallagher said the election result could see the local market under-perform Wall Street for a period.

"It will take the focus of defensive market such as New Zealand and Australia.

"It's common to have a relief rally after an election, but that is likely to run out of puff as markets focus again on the US twin deficits," he said.

Electronic payments systems company Provenco was the star of the market with a 8.5 per cent gain after it announced a profit upgrade.

It said strong domestic and international trading in the first half meant it expected to exceed last year's full year result of $4.1m.

Provenco shares rose 6c to 77c on opening this morning.

Waste Management, which yesterday said it was paying to $2m to buy an Auckland business as a pre-emptive strike to insulate itself against loss of some rubbish contracts, was up 4c to 550.

Lion Nathan rose 4c to 862 after it reported a net profit of A$160.1 million ($177.3m) for the year to September 30, 2004, down 11 per cent on the previous year, as it was hit by writedowns in its wine business. New Zealand profits were down 6 per cent.

However net profit after significant items was up 12.5 per cent to $202.7m.It forecast a net profit from operations for the current year to come in between A$230-235 million ($255-260m).

There was precious little else in the way of significant movements. Westpac NZ continued to rally, up 12c to 1982, AMP was up 9c to 708, GPG was up 3c to 218, Tenon was up 3c to 221 and NZX was down 4c at 731.

Mr Gallagher said there was renewed talk in the market of the prospect of more takeover activity following takeover plays for Powerco and NGC.

"There is a little bit of speculation that people are running the ruler over the potential corporate plays in New Zealand.

"It tends to happen once a couple of takeovers come through and people look at what's the next stock off the block."

He said the old favourites of Fisher & Paykel Appliances, up 1c at 414, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, up 3c at 307, and Tower, up 2c at 243, were being bandied about.

US stocks, led be health and defence companies that are expected to benefit from the re-election of Mr Bush, closed up but higher oil prices checked advances.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 101.32 points, or 1.01 per cent, to end at 10,137.05 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 12.63 points, or 1.12 per cent, to finish at 1,143.19, based on the latest available data. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 19.54 points, or 0.98 per cent, to close at 2,004.33.

- NZPA