NZ stocks: Official Cash Rate cut leads to a buoyant market

6.00pm

The sharemarket was in buoyant mood today after the Reserve Bank (RB) announced a quarter percentage point cut in the Official Cash Rate (OCR).

RB Governor Alan Bollard cut the OCR by 25 basis points to 5.25 per cent.

"The market was pretty buoyant, particularly in yield sensitive stock such as Telecom," Macquarie Equities broker David Cleal said.

The 7.6 million shares, worth $38.7 million, traded saw Telecom share price close up 1c at 508.

By 4.30pm the NZSX50 gross index had climbed 18.45 points to 2101.77, while the NZSX40 capital index was up 19.22 points to 2068.47.

Of the $90.7 million of stocks traded today on turnover of 33.1 million, there were 59 rises and 29 falls on the 130 shares traded.

Mr Cleal said the Fisher and Paykel sister companies, Appliances and Healthcare, had shown good yields today.

Appliances closed out the day up 29c on 1245 and Healthcare was up 15c to 1140.

Building sector stocks like Fletcher Building, Nuplex, Steel and Tube also looked good.

Fletcher Building finished up 3c at 363, Nuplex was up 1c at 380, Steel and Tube was at 350 all day, while Carter Holt Harvey was up 6c to 168.

Other rises in today's trading were: ANZ up 20c to 2160, Contact Energy up 10c to 480, Lion Nathan up 12c to 665, Port of Tauranga up 10c to 435, Westpac up 10c to 1795, and Briscoes up 9c to 209.

NZX, formerly the New Zealand Stock Exchange, surrendered some of the value its shares gained in their maiden day on the market yesterday.

NZX rights shed 20c to 250, while NZX hit a low of 390 before bouncing back to close 10c down at 410.

"Probably the (NZX) price was a little higher than most people's expectations and there has been some signs of profit taking," Mr Cleal said.

"But there still seems to be quite a bit of residual buying interest around NZX as well. When the price weakened off it came back up again," he said.

NZX intends raising $15 million from its listing -- $10 million of which would come from the issue of new shares, and $5 million from existing shareholders.

- NZPA