NZ stocks: Sharemarket tentatively breaks seven-session losing streak

6.21pm

The sharemarket cracked a seven-session losing streak today, but it was a less than decisive break.

"We've had a pretty damned good shakeout, so there was underlying buying across the board," Goldman Sachs JBWere broker Murray Rutherford said.

Gains were mostly modest, although widespread, with a suggestion of index buying from some quarters, and there were few stocks that lost ground, he said.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index finished 6.98 points up at 2778.53, while the NZSX-All capital index eked out a 1.94 point gain to end at 922.00.

Top stock Telecom typified the market with a 2c gain to 576 on volume worth over $42 million.

Fletcher Building was the main stock to go against the trend. Yesterday, it went ex a 14c dividend, but lost 19c, and today it lost another 10c to 532. Mr Rutherford said that at that price it was showing "signs of value".

GPG was another to buck the trend, falling 5c to 198 following belated revelations of alleged price manipulation in the 1990s in relation to British thread firm Coats.

Lion Nathan bounded 25c ahead to a historic high of 847. Brokers said there was no news of the stock and the same factors were underpinning it -- solid brewery earnings in Australia and New Zealand.

Port of Tauranga had a good session with a 16c gain to 565 but again brokers could not pinpoint a particular reason.

Air New Zealand rose 4c, or 2.6 per cent, to 157 following its AGM in Christchurch today. The company announced a slight profit downgrade -- to $220m against $243m last year -- as well as a one-for-six capital raising. The $186m capital raising was slightly less than expected.

While not unexpected, the fact that government was supporting it to the tune of $150m was "a small positive", according to ABN AMRO Craigs institutional dealer Mike Hare.

Freightways outshone the market's gain with a 3.3 per cent, 8c, rise to 248.

Steel & Tube continued its upward momentum, rising 6c to 461.

Nuplex rose 4c to 514 ahead of Friday's annual meeting where details of its 110 million euro ($202 million) offer for Coatings Resins are expected.

Teamtalk rose 5c to 260 following upbeat addresses at its annual meeting in Wellington today.

Against that, Skellmax fell 1c to 120 after executives said at its annual meeting in Auckland it expected net earnings to rise 8 per cent in 2004/5 to equal the 2003 result.

ANZ Bank rose 15c to 2110 following its result yesterday where it said the takeover of National Bank was proceeding smoothly. Fellow bank Westpac NZ rose 15c to 1860.

Other good gainers today included Trustpower, 10c to 525, Contact Energy, 3c to 595, AMP, 11c to 673, Fisher & Paykel Appliances, 4c to 398 and Tower, up 3c to 226.

NZ Refining came back 50c to 2600 following its good run on rising oil prices and margins.

The top ten index closed 1.92 points up at 1090.34 but the small stocks index fell 9.84 to 7799.66.

There were 62 stocks up and 36 down among the 157 traded.

Some 42.4 million shares changed hands, worth $122.6m.

- NZPA