NZ stocks: Sky City Entertainment hogs limelight in quiet session

The New Zealand sharemarket finished higher today in a session with good turnover but little corporate news, a broker said today.

At 5pm, the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 8.43 points at 2620.83, while the NZSX-All capital index was up 0.23 of a point at 879.44.

Top stock Telecom was up 2c at 553, its $46.8 million turnover equating to 29.6 per cent of the $158.1 million turnover on NZX today.

Among the 157 stocks traded today were 44 rises and 62 falls.

ASB Securities head of advisory Stephen Wright said although the market's turnover appeared healthy, trading in Sky City shares had given it a substantial push along.

There was $49.9 million worth of shares in Sky City traded today.

The company's shares closed down 1c at 472.

Details of the transaction remain obscure; it was not immediately clear who had sold the shares, or who had bought them, Mr Wright told NZPA today.

Another market watcher described the market trade as "mediocre", probably because of a lack of corporate news to drive trading.

"There's just not much going on today. You can't say more than that," he said.

In other market news, Jim Watson, the founder and chief executive of biotech company Genesis Research, said he planned to quit his current roles for that of "founder scientist".

At the company's annual meeting in Auckland, he said Genesis Research was at a crossroads.

"To be a sustainable industry, investors must believe it is an industry worth investing in. That does not appear to be the case at the moment."

Genesis Research shares were unchanged at 67c.

Meanwhile, Powerco was down 7c at 206, after shedding an 8.8c a share dividend.

Feltex was down 1c at 164, after listing on Friday at 162 -- an 8c, or 4.7 per cent, discount to the 170 issue price.

Other stocks on the move today included: AMP up 27c at 652, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 9c at 1314, F&P Appliances down 9c at 460, Infratil down 7c at 293, NZ Refining up 10c at 1960, Ports of Auckland down 10c at 715, Sky City Leisure down 9c at 76, and Vertex down 5c at 150.

Overseas, the Dow Jones was up 148.26 points at 10,391.08, the Standard & Poor's 500 was up 18.03 points at 1140.53, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 42.00 points at 2020.62.

- NZPA