NZ stocks: Market stable despite falls offshore

6.00pm

Sentiment remained positive among New Zealand investors today as the benchmark index held its ground despite further big falls overseas.

The NZSE-40 capital index closed down four points at 1976.76, while the top-10 index gained 2.04 points to 884.08.

"We're only down 0.2 per cent, while everywhere else in the region's down more like 1-2 per cent, or even 3 per cent," Alan Wills of Forsyth Barr Frater Williams said.

"There's a bit of turnover too -- we got up to $61 million, which isn't bad.

"It's just the attitude towards New Zealand. There's a lot of interest in Telecom, which is obviously 21 per cent of the index, so if that has a reasonable day then the index holds together," Mr Wills said.

Telecom topped the day's turnover with 6.84 million stocks, valued at $33.52 million, although it closed down 1c at 489.

"There's still underlying confidence here in the leaders ... we still seem to be at little bit out of step with the rest of the world, we don't have overvaluation problems or debt problems with our corporates," Mr Wills said.

"We seem to have some reasonable growth in our economy still, and there's quite a lot of yield in our equities and quite a lot of growth in them too."

Some of the interest in Telecom related to the proposed new stock market index to be introduced next year. Telecom will increase its market weighting to 26 per cent from the current 21 per cent.

The rejig will expand the benchmark index from 40 to 50 stocks, and stocks will be weighted according to free-float (shares available to the public), not market capitalisation.

Other stocks will have their weightings heavily trimmed including current No 2 stock Carter Holt Harvey, Ports of Auckland, Sky TV, and Contact Energy.

On the market, Contact had a good day, up 10c at 385, while Carter Holt was up 1c at 162, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare gained 10c to 985,#

AMP plunged 70c to a fresh low of 1315, albeit on light volume, after the stock went ex-dividend A26c (NZ30.03c).

The Australian-based financial services company signalled further cost cutting was likely at its troubled United Kingdom operation, Pearl Assurance.

The unspecified cuts would come on top of its A$300 million programme already in place.

Turners Auctions fell victim to profit taking today following its hard-hitting debut on Friday, closing down 11c at 221. Shares in New Zealand's largest car auctioneer were issued last month at 150, and launched on Friday at 216.

Baycorp Advantage was down 10c at 325, ANZ lost 40c to 2050, WestpacTrust shed 40c to 1485, Guinness Peat Group was down 1c at 155, and Pacific Retail shed 15c to 300.

Sky City Leisure - formerly Force Corp - were down 66.5c at 121 on a mere 3200 stocks, Auckland Airport was down 6c at 424, and The Warehouse lost 2c to 713.

There were 51 falls and 38 rises on the 133 stocks traded.

Little corporate news was expected this week with a Telecom AGM on Thursday and August retail trade figures tomorrow.

On Wall St on Friday, the blue-chip Dow tumbled 188.79 points, or 2.45 per cent, to 7528.79; the broader Standard and Poor's 500 Index fell 18.37 points, or 2.24 per cent, to 800.58; and the technology-packed Nasdaq Composite Index lost 25.66 points, or 2.20 per cent, to 1139.90.

Britain's FTSE index lost 1.7 per cent on Friday, while Germany's leading benchmark, the DAX, shed 3.5 per cent.

- NZPA