NZ stocks: Sharemarket trading slowly as it takes a breather

12.00pm

Trading on the sharemarket continued slowly this morning as it consolidated recent strong gains, a broker said.

By 11.30am there had been just $23.6 million of shares traded at a volume of 8.8 million.

The benchmark NZSX50 gross index fell 5.56 points to 2106.52, and the NZSX40 capital index shed 1.98 points to 2069.70.

Market leader Telecom had traded $12.8 million on turnover of 2.5 million, its shares down 1c to 504.

Cash-strapped rail operator Tranz Rail's shares were unchanged on 91c at 11.30am.

There were 33 rises and 39 falls in the 114 stocks traded so far.

Forsyth Barr broker David Price said it was expected the market would take a bit of a breather today.

"I still see that there is more upside to the market from here, but it'll probably have a few days of consolidating the recent strong gains," he told NZPA today.

"There hasn't been a lot of fresh corporate news.

"The markets offshore have been, in general, moving slowly on up against the backdrop of central banks cutting their rates," he said.

On the rise this morning were, Air New Zealand up 2c to 53, Auckland Airport up 15c to 570, Fisher and Paykel Appliances up 4c to 1289, Genesis Energy up 2c to 127, Port of Auckland up 5c to 735, Dominion Breweries up 20c to 700, TrustPower up 5c to 445.

Among the shares that had slipped were, Contact Energy down 8c to 481, F&P Healthcare shed 1c to 1128, Pacific Retail dipped 5c to 220, Tower gave up 2c to 157 and The Warehouse fell 1c to 438.

- NZPA