NZ stocks: Slight rise on quiet day for brokers

The New Zealand sharemarket plodded along without direction yesterday, with few clues from Northern Hemisphere markets.

The NZSE-40 capital index ended in slightly positive territory, up 3.59 points at 1989.55, including $20 million in pre-market crossings.

Total turnover was a moderate $64.5 million, mirroring a mildly positive 0.65 per cent increase in the Dow overnight.

Dealers lamented the lack of widespread trading in the market, noting that most of the action would be in individual stocks as the reporting season for the June 30 balance date got under way.

"In terms of those with six-monthly or full years, those profit numbers are probably still the best part of two weeks away," said Kerry Porter, a broker with Macquarie Equities.

Contact Energy led the way, providing a slightly better than expected nine-month net tax-paid profit of $70.4 million. It was up 2c to $3.82.

"Our forecast was $69 million," said Porter, who expected Contact's price would now be driven by news of Australian acquisitions.

"Customer growth continues to be strong. They put on 17,000 new customers in the third quarter and no change to our full-year forecast [$105 million]. Contact's reiterated their full-year guidance at $102 million."

In contrast, Richmond provided a "very, very disappointing" profit warning for its second half, having reported a $1.5 million loss for the first half. It had indicated it expected a full-year profit of around $11 million - yesterday its share price fell 10c to $2.10, off a year-high of $2.55.

Telecom was the most active stock, rising 4c to $4.75 on $22.6 million worth of shares, mostly on order flows. The company has a quarterly result due on Friday.

Tranz Rail sank to a new low of $2 yesterday, down 10c as a line of more than one million shares were crossed. Dealers said that was a sign that an institution had got sick of waiting for the company to turn the corner.

Elsewhere on the market, Auckland Airport was down 2c to $4.18 and Fletcher Forests was down 1c to 22c.

On the upside, Carter Holt Harvey was up 2c to $1.86, Fisher & Paykel Appliances was up 5c to $8.85, its Healthcare cousin was up 10c to $8.40, Fletcher Building was up 3c to $2.72, Pacific Retail was up 15c to $2.90, Port of Tauranga was up 10c to $7.60, UnitedNetworks was up 5c to $9.15, Wakefield Hospital was up 14c to $1.49 and the Warehouse was up 7c to $7.10.

Fletcher shareholder Rubicon was down 2c to 70c after Fletcher Forests announced a valuation for the Tahorakuri forest which was close to its own US$64 million price tag.

Rises outnumbered falls 51 to 39 on 124 stocks traded.

- NZPA