NZ stocks: Power companies lift market, PGC makes strong debut

The benchmark NZSX-50 gross sharemarket index pushed to new highs today in morning trading, helped by continued strength in the power companies.

Financial services company Pyne Gould Corp (PGC), expected to soon be included in the top 50 index, made a strong debut listing, at $5.30 and rising to $5.60, to give it a market capitalisation of $269 million.

PGC last traded at $5.15 on the unlisted market. The share price had increased by 34 per cent over the past six months ahead of the expected main board listing and on its improved earnings.

Power company Contact has been a beneficiary of Meridian's decision yesterday to abandon the Project Aqua power project. It lifted 7c yesterday and added another 18c to 558 today. It also announced it had abandoned plans to investigate buying the

Australian assets of its 51 per cent owner, Edison Mission.

TrustPower, another beneficiary of the Aqua axing, rose 11c to 711.

The benchmark NZSX-50 gross index made new highs today, rising 14.42 points by noon to 2592.47. The NZSX-40 capital index, to be ditched on April 1, was up 12.91 points to 2321.23.

Telecom completely dominated turnover at $12.7 million of the market's $24 million total. It rose 4c to 585.

No 2 stock Carter Holt Harvey was up 1c at 221, showing continued strength from last week's tissue division sale.

Tenon rose 5c to 167, showing further strength after yesterday's capital reconstruction.

Stocks to rise included: Vending Technologies 8c to 120, The Warehouse 4c to 431, AMP 9c to 672, Metlifecare 9c to 229, Cavalier 4c to 492, NZ Refining 30c to 1650, Westpac NZ 8c to 1920, and Pacific Retail 5c to 205.

Falling stocks included: ANZ 11c to 2190, NZX 10c to 850, and Sky City Leisure convertibles, 9c to 140.

In all, there were 47 stocks up and 18 down among the 110 traded in the morning.

The influence from Wall Street was positive. US stocks surged as investors drew comfort from lower oil costs and took advantage of the market's recent slide to 2004 lows, loading up on large companies like Hewlett-Packard ahead of the quarterly earnings season.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the technology-packed Nasdaq Composite Index both ended at their highest levels in more than two weeks.

The Dow gained 116.36 points, or 1.14 per cent, to 10,329.33, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 32.55 points, or 1.66 per cent, to 1,992.57.

- NZPA