NZ stocks: Telecom provides vitality to quiet sharemarket

12.00pm

A lack of direction on overseas markets saw a relatively quiet opening on the New Zealand Stock Exchange this morning, with market leader Telecom providing at least some vitality.

JB Were senior investment adviser Peter Stokes said the market was continuing to watch developments at cash strapped financial services company Tower with interest.

Yesterday Tower announced it would report a half-year loss of $180 million and a $200 million capital raising, prompting a 37 per cent fall in its share price.

Mr Stokes said the capital raising was likely to be made by way of a deeply discounted rights issue. "Which means anybody who is viewing this stock as a bargain or looking for a turnaround story may be best served by waiting until the rights are trading which is traditionally a period of weakness for any stock."

Tower shares were up 3c to 141 at 11.39am, after peaking at 146 today, and $7.5 million worth had been traded.

Meanwhile Mr Stokes noted Telecom had continued to push up through the $5 mark, which it breached yesterday.

"But it's been unable to consolidate and further extend those gains on modest volume at the moment." Telecom was up 8c to 512 at 11.39am, six month high and up 21 per cent from mid March.

There was $21.6 million of Telecom shares traded so far this morning.

Elsewhere, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare posted a "pretty solid" profit result this morning, its shares trading were trading on par at 1070 at 11.39am.

Mr Stokes said the New Zealand market had not been shown much direction overnight by overseas exchanges.

In New York, the Dow Jones blue chips ended slightly higher yesterday but tech stocks eased, Britain's top shares closed one per cent lower, Japan's Nikkei eased by half a per cent and the Hong Kong market finished flat.

Back in New Zealand Mr Stokes said Telecom and "order flow" would likely dictate market movements today.

TranzRail's shares also rose in this morning's session, now up 6c to 93, more than $1.2 million of the beleagured rail operator's shares being traded.

At 11.39am the NZ50 Gross Index was up 11.94 points to 2025.17 and the NZSE40 was up 9.10 points to 1995.43.

Turnover was $39.9 6 million on 17.7 million shares.

Stocks which rose in early trading to 9.30am included Auckland Airport up 1c to 531, Fisher & Paykel Appliances up 5c to 1085, Independent Newspapers Ltd up 2c to 412, Sky City up 7c to 805, Sky TV up 10c to 420, and the Warehouse, up 2c to 445.

Stocks to fall included Briscoe down 1c to 199, Contact Energy down 2c to 458, and New Zealand Refining down 5c to 1590.

There were 29 rises and 22 falls on 102 stocks traded.

- NZPA