NZ stocks: Telecom and second liners drag on market

12.00 pm

The top 40 capital index was dragged down by lead stock Telecom and a number of second liners going ex dividend today.

The index was off 6.34 points to 2065.21 at 11.35am. Trading was extremely light with just 8.7 million shares traded, worth $24 million.

First NZ Securities broker Rue Bourke said sellers were not queueing up but the tone was lacklustre despite Wall Street having a positive day on Friday.

The Dow gained around 0.9 per cent and the Nasdaq 0.8 per cent on news of a strong bounce in US consumer sentiment and factory orders.

However, the news did nothing to help Telecom which initially fell 8c to 486, just 6c off its low for the year. It later rallied to 489.

Star performer was GPG, which jumped 5c to 185 after reporting on Friday that its annual earnings had doubled. Mr Bourke said the result was better than expected.

Stocks to go ex included: Axa (A7.5c), Baycorp Advantage (A3c), Independent Newspapers (4c), Lyttelton Port (3.75c), Michael Hill (7c), Natural Gas (3c), BIL (0.2826c) Sky City (15.5c), Waste Mangement (5c) and Wrightson (3.5c).

Lion Nathan topped the turnover with 1.5 million shares traded worth $8.1 million. It was up 3c at 555. There was 916,000 of Baycorp Advantage stock traded, worth $4.3 million, and it was off 25c to 630.

Other stocks to move included: ANZ was down 19 at 2141, Carter Holt Harvey down 3c at 192, Contact Energy up 3c at 393, Fletcher Building, down 2c at 298, Ports of Auckland up 5c at 630, Wrightson, down 4c at 118, and Tower was down 3c at 509.

There were 43 falls and 33 rises among the 112 stocks traded.

- NZPA