NZ stocks: Michael Hill star of otherwise featureless market

5.00pm

Brokers might have been hoping for a relief rally following September 11, but they were disappointed on today's New Zealand sharemarket.

At session's end, the NZSE-40 Capital Index had lost 4.44 points to 2036.42 on volume worth $61.4 million.

"It's a pretty quiet turnover. There's not a great deal of features out there," Phil Hardie Boys, a broker with First NZ Capital, said.

Leading the market down was Telecom, which yesterday announced it and rival TelstraClear had reached a partial deal on their long-standing dispute over interconnection.

It was down 3c to 489 on $13.4 million worth of shares.

Strong trading was also seen in UnitedNetworks, up a cent to 982 on turnover worth $8.3 million.

One of the star performers today was Michael Hill International, which closed on a new all-time high of 600, up 32c, following news of a 20cps special dividend reflecting the sale of its Australian head office building for A$4.5 million ($5.3 million).

Several stocks eased as they went ex-dividend today, including retailer Briscoe which lost 6c to 269 after paying out a 2.75c dividend. Pyne Gould Guinness also softened 9c to 108 after an 8.5c dividend and Wrightson was down 8c to 122 after going ex-dividend by 8c a share.

Troubled rail operator Tranz Rail clawed back 3c of its recent losses to close at 158c. The company, which last week posted a $122 million annual loss, was hit by a two-notch downgrade by Standard & Poor's today to junk bond status, as it anticipated.

Other moves included Pacific Retail up 10c to 350 after announcing a bonus issue on Friday, Sky City up 5c to 710, Lion Nathan was up 7c to 597, Scottech up 10c to 195, Port of Auckland was down 5c to 620, and Carter Holt Harvey was down 2c to 174.

Hellaby, which has had a good run after its result last week was up another 5c to 280, right on its year high.

There were 42 rises and 43 falls among the 129 stocks traded.

Today's flat trading took its cue from a mixed day on Wall St on Friday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average losing 66.72 points, or 0.80 per cent, to 8312.69 and the tech-packed Nasdaq Composite Index gaining 11.72 points, or 0.92 per cent, to 1291.40.

- NZPA