NZ stocks: Warehouse, rural stocks rise above herd

The Warehouse and rural stocks featured on an otherwise lacklustre sharemarket yesterday.

The NZSE-40 index closed 2.08 points lower at 2156.16 while the small stocks index rose 14.70 to 5420.46.

There was $131.3 million worth of turnover, of which $42 million was in Telecom and $14 million in Lion Nathan.

"It was a fairly disappointing day offshore and it really carried on from that lead," said Salomon Smith Barney broker Mike Hare.

Contact closed 9c down at 254 after news that its Otahuhu-B stations will be out for repairs for six months and that it lost its appeal in a case involving Fletcher Energy. The latter continued to perform strongly with expectations that it and Fletcher Forests will be sold by the end of the month. Energy closed 3c up at 793.

The Warehouse, which took a beating last week on poorly received sales figures, recovered strongly yesterday to be up 26c at 576. It got a fillip from Farmers Deka's poor sales figures on Thursday, with analysts estimating The Warehouse has picked up market share.

Telecom remained under pressure ahead of its annual result on Tuesday. It closed 3c down at 745. Baycorp came off 30c to $12.20 after its very strong run.

Mr Hare said the rural sector had had a lot of activity in the last week as stocks responded to buoyant commodity prices and strong export activity. Two cent rises were posted by Affco to 46, Wrightson to 59 and Tasman Agriculture to 104. "Clearly, right across the rural sector, they are doing very well with the lower dollar," he said.

Advantage Group, which reported its formal result yesterday after being admonished by the exchange for reporting unofficially earlier in the week, fell 8c to 292. GDC continued its great run, rising 10c to 495.

Lyttelton Port, which is on the expansion trail, rose 10c to 165 on good turnover. Ports of Auckland, though, fell 16c to 430 and Port of Tauranga fell 15c to 495.

Sky City, expected to report a strong result next week, rose 5c to 735. Grocorp tumbled 7c to 12c on light turnover.UnitedNetworks rose 8c to 683 while TrustPower gained the same to 348.

- NZPA