NZ stocks: Telecom leads pack back up rollercoaster

Telecom rebounded strongly from Wednesday's selloff, giving a fillip to the sharemarket.

The NZSE-40 capital index closed up 22.78 points at 2077.78 on turnover worth $71 million.

Telecom - which had struggled amid suggestions that its cornerstone shareholder Verizon was having trouble finding buyers for a planned selldown of its 21.5 per cent stake - closed up 17c at $5.00.

"We've had a rollercoaster week of which the lead horse has been Telecom,"said JBWere senior investment adviser Peter Stokes.

Telecom, with an index weighting of 23 per cent, can move the entire index up or down.

Stokes said Telecom's rally today was to be expected.

"You get a knee-jerk reaction to events such as that Verizon story, but it doesn't change the fundamental attraction of Telecom so it doesn't surprise me to see that stock up on quite high volume."

Seven million Telecom shares worth $35 million changed hands.

Among other leading stocks, Carter Holt Harvey added 2c to $1.96, Contact Energy was unchanged at $3.99, Fletcher Building dropped 3c to $3.00, Auckland Airport rose 5c to $4.23, Sky City lost 5c to $5.95 and The Warehouse rose 6c to $6.55.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances improved 5c to $9.35, and its Healthcare cousin was steady at $9.95.

Air New Zealand held its ground at 34c after posting a $376.5 million loss for the half year to December 31. The result included $75.6 million of losses from continuing operations and $300.9 million of unusual losses.

"It was always going to be an ugly result - it was all about what shade of ugly," Stokes said. "There were enough signals and expectations that were built into all the brokers' and analysts' numbers. It is really about the future, this company. The market's got to see some runs on the board. You've got a new management team with not a lot of aviation experience, but certainly business experience.

"The bad news is out and now it's just a matter of seeing how the business goes from here."

Fifty-three stocks rose in price and 39 fell among the 133 traded.

- NZPA