NZ stocks: Pumpkin Patch highlight of flat day on sharemarket

A strong debut by children's retailer Pumpkin Patch was the highlight in an otherwise uneventful day's trading which saw the sharemarket lose ground.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index was off 9.62 points at 2611.21, while the NZSX-All capital index fell 3.92 points to 875.52.

Total market turnover was $111 million.

Bellwether stock Telecom was down 5c at 548, on turnover worth $35.6 million.

Pumpkin Patch shares opened at 132c this morning, a 5.6 per cent premium on their issue price of 125c, and finished the day at 138c.

There was good turnover in the stock with over 5.7 million shares traded, worth $7.7 million.

About 60 per cent of the newly issued stock was believed to have gone to retail investors, compared with 40 per cent to institutional investors.

Goldman Sachs JB Were broker Murray Rutherford said the company had an attractive outlook.

"But it's a small company and it's difficult to get stock and I think a number of people have seen this as the first opportunity... where they will be able to get the most stock," he said.

Pumpkin Patch is faring better than the market's other recent listing, Feltex Carpets, which was unchanged today at 164, down from its issue price of 170.

Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) was down 1c at 201, which Mr Rutherford attributed to recent export trade data which showed log volumes were weak in April and headline prices for CHH's products had fallen.

Genesis Research was up 13c, or 19.4 per cent, at 80, following its annual meeting yesterday where it told shareholders it was in discussions with a number of major international companies on licensing some of its drugs in development.

NZ Refining fell 5c to 1955 despite reporting its average profit from processing crude oil in March and April was 38 per cent higher than a year earlier.

There were 51 stocks up and 48 down among the 153 traded today.

Other stocks on the move included: Sky City Entertainment down 3c at 469, Infratil up 3c at 296, Independent Newspapers Ltd down 7c at 485, Wrightson up 2c at 154, Port of Tauranga down 8c at 522, Tenon up 1c at 194, Fletcher Building down 7c at 436, and Contact Energy up 7c at 581.

- NZPA