NZ stocks: Market undercut by Telecom

12.00pm


A 2c fall in morning trading by market leader Telecom undercut the sharemarket today.

Telecom, which last week climbed to a two-year high of 545, fell back to 536 and traded as low as 533.

Countering that, Contact Energy spurted ahead another 6c to 554 on the back of higher wholesale power prices and The Warehouse continued this year's good run, rising another 3c to 540. It traded up at 545 -- 4.6 per cent above where it finished 2003.

Another retailer to have performed well this year, Michael Hill International, gained 9c to 499 -- up 3.9 per cent for the year. Pacific Retail however, fell 10c to 232.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index was off 2.30 points to 2462.44 at 11.30am while the NZSX-40 capital index was down 0.09 points at 2292.07.

Despite the return of many people from summer holidays, volume was pitifully thin. There were only 7.6 million shares traded, worth just over $25.6 million, with $8.8 million of that in Telecom.

In other movements, AMP fell 5c to 555 and fellow insurer AXA was down 8c to 305. Ebos fell 7c to 343, Metlifecare fell 10c to 220, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 10c to 1240.

Meat processor Richmond gained 29c to 280 on a parcel of just 217 shares.

Recently listed Austral Pacific rose 5c to 205, Infratil rose 4c to 282, and Mainfreight rose 6c to 172.

Among the other power companies, Powerco rose 4c to 202 while TrustPower fell 5c to 685 and thinnly traded Horizon Energy rose 9c to 385

There were 31 stocks to rise against 32 falls among the 112 traded.

- NZPA