NZ stocks: Popular Briscoe listing dominates quiet market

12:00 pm

Briscoe Group provided the key focus of this morning's trading on the sharemarket, listing at $1.40, a 40 per cent premium on its issue price.

The homeware and sports good retailer had been heavily oversubscribed, and traded briskly after opening on the board at 9.45 am.

Just after 11 am, around 5.6 million Briscoe shares had changed hands and the share price peaked at $1.45 before settling at $1.42.

Brokers said there was potential for retracement closer to analysts' forecasts of $1.30, but the stock was selling strongly, being the only second Initial Public Offering on the Stock Exchange's main board this year.

"There's a perception it's the next Warehouse," said DF Mainland broker Greg Arnott.

"People have these premonitions of the stock being $3 or $4 within a relatively short space of time - perhaps a year or two - and it's getting in on an entry level like this that people like."

Elsewhere the sharemarket was quiet, with good volumes although brokers said much of that had been due to premarket crossings recently.

They expected the market to tend towards softening, after heavy drops on both the Dow and Nasdaq this morning. The Dow was down 128 points or 1.3 per cent to 9766.45 and the Nasdaq fell 64 points or 3.2 per cent to 1946.51, on news of a record drop in November retail sales and dismal earnings forecasts by two major communications equipment manufacturers.

Total turnover by mid-morning was a respectable $45 million with the NZSE-40 capital index down 9.58 points to 2064.68.

Telecom led the market down, falling 3c to 512, while GPG was holding its own at 162.

Forest products company Carter Holt Harvey was 4c down to 174 but was keeping its value well, given a Moody's downgrade on its long-term credit rating two days ago.

Mr Arnott said CHH's price was based on light volumes, but the fact it had not fallen further indicated there was still "good take" for the stock, which had benefited from renewed interest in cyclical stocks.

Other stocks to move included Auckland Airport down 3c to 390, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare steady at 1695, F&P Appliances up 20c to 1040, Telstra up 4c to 650, and the Warehouse, down 4c to 670.

So far there have been 29 falls and 22 rises on 100 stocks traded.

- NZPA