NZ stocks: Unremarkable day on sharemarket

The sharemarket had a reasonable day today, rising slightly on lowish volume.

Market gauge the NZSX50 gross index rose 1.88 points or 0.09 per cent to 2169.84, but the NZSX 40 capital index eased by 0.32 of a point or 0.02 per cent to 2108.57.

"It was just a reasonable day, nothing special," said UBS Warburg managing director Campbell Stuart.

Turnover was an unremarkable $73.1 million on 25.5 million shares traded.

Top stock by turnover was Telecom with 5.3 million shares worth $27.37 million changing hands.

"It looked like Telecom was going to do slightly better and then it sort of faded towards the close," Mr Stuart said.

Telecom finished the session where it began at 517.

Mr Stuart said the market "tends to be quite thin at the moment," and it was proving difficult at times to "execute some of the orders that are in the market within the bounds of the price parameters".

"People are sort of well set and a little bit inactive."

He said overseas investors were "obviously focusing on some more aggressive moves on markets other than ours".

Also having some effect locally according to some brokers was speculation over the size of a US Federal Reserve interest rate cut due to be announced tonight.

"People are waiting to see what happens overnight and that'll probably set the tone, maybe the rate cut might see a better day tomorrow," Mr Stuart said.

Stocks to rise today included: Auckland International Airport up 5c to 597, BIL International up 2c to 75, Capital Properties up 2c to 88, Carter Holt Harvey up a cent to 171, Cavalier up 5c to 475, Contact Energy up a cent to 489, Fletcher Forests up 2c to 116, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 13c to 1165, Hellaby Holdings up 7c to 435, Independent Newspapers Ltd up 3c to 420, Infratil up 2c to 200, Michael Hill up 3c to 450, NZX up 10c to 410, Ryman Healthcare up 2c to 177, and Sky City up 5c to 940.

Among stocks to fall were: AMP down 6c to 570, BayCorp Advantage down 4c to 158, Briscoe down a cent to 195, Fletcher Building down 2c to 371, Genesis Power down 5c to 120, NGC Holdings down 4c to 159, NZ Refining Co down 6c to 1660, Owens Group down 3c to 95, Ports of Auckland down 10c to 780, Port of Tauranga down 8c to 425, Promina down a cent to 266, Software of Excellence down 2c to 138, Steel & Tube down 9c to 361, Telstra down 4c to 501, Tourism Holdings Ltd down a cent to 111, Tower Group down 2c to 146, the Warehouse down 3c to 512, and Westfield down 3c to 412.

There were 38 rises and 45 falls among 129 stocks traded.

- NZPA