NZ stocks: 'Oversold' Air NZ shares in for long haul

With a bit of help from Telecom and the Australian Stock Exchange, the NZSE-40 recovered its early losses to close up three-quarters of a per cent yesterday.

"The reason the market turned around from being down a little bit [before lunch] to being up was the Australian market was quite firm, and that particularly had an impact on Telecom," Merrill Lynch broker Richard Leggat said.

Telecom closed up 12c at 598 and was responsible for almost half of the day's turnover with $35.05 million out of the $77.11 million total.

Air New Zealand B shares rose 8c to 213, despite reports that underwriters JB Were were likely to have to pick up a large hunk of the recent rights issue. The A shares were up 4c to 154.

"I think there's been some buying in Air New Zealand on the basis that the stock got oversold on the profit warning. The rights issue taken up is probably reasonable, so there have been some investors who have been prepared to buy the stock and take a slightly longer term view," Mr Leggat said.

Lion Nathan closed up 5c at 506, Carter Holt Harvey was unchanged at 168 and Baycorp added 15c to 1125.

Fletcher Challenge Energy took a heavy hit following a 15 per cent fall in the share price of its American interest Capstone Turbine in the US overnight.

Capstone had fallen from $US94 ($NZ240.10) on September 4 to just under $US39 yesterday.

Fletcher Energy slipped 24c at 824.

"The volume in the shares wasn't particularly great so it looked like it was just a day where the order flow was bias towards the sell side and the stock drifted lower," he said.

Fletcher Building gained 10c to 190 on turnover worth $3.28 million and Fletcher Forests closed unchanged at 35.

Fisher & Paykel, due to report its half year profit today, rose 5c to 720. Contact Energy fell back 2c to 295 after hitting a five-month high on Monday while Tower dropped 1c to 507.

Beauty Direct fell 3c to 12 after announcing it was to acquire Australasian cosmetics firm CS Company.

- NZPA