NZ stocks: Overseas interest boosts Fletcher letters

The New Zealand sharemarket ended in positive territory on reasonable turnover yesterday.

The NZSE-40 capital index closed at 1908.25, up 2.65 points or 0.14 per cent.

The small companies' NZSE-SCI capital index was down 5.70 points at 5138.49.

Turnover of 27.29 million shares was valued at $98.98 million.

Fletcher Energy made up almost half that, $46.22 million worth of shares changing hands.

David Cleal of JB Were said Energy was yesterday's key stock, basking in continued overseas interest as the New Zealand dollar lost some ground.

Energy closed up 11c to 830, Building was up 4c to 211, and Forests gained 1c to 34.

Mr Cleal said the New Zealand market had been reasonably positive yesterday, continuing the trend since the end of the year.

"New Zealand's looked a lot better than Australia since Christmas. It relates back to the currency and the firming New Zealand dollar. There seems to have been a little more interest from offshore in the New Zealand market."

The New Zealand share market opening was delayed half an hour because of technical problems.

Telecom ended the day unchanged at 4.87, on light turnover of 3.66 million shares.

"I think the market's very much looking for developments with Cable and Wireless Optus in Australia, with the sale of their mobile business. That's quite pivotal for the stock going forward," he said.

Telstra shed 20c to 825 in a currency-related drop as the New Zealand dollar appreciated against the Australian dollar.

Among stocks to go up, Baycorp rose 10c to 1250, DB Group 15c to 515, SkyTV 5c to 330 and Tranz Rail 3c to 361.

Contact Energy lost 2c to 262, Fisher and Paykel was down 5c at 780, Lion Nathan lost 3c to 500 and United Networks lost 10c to 790.

Falls outnumbered rises 41 to 37 among the 141 stocks traded.

- NZPA