KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket rose today as blue chip stock Fletcher Building regained some ground lost late last week.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 12.55 points at 4238.94, having fallen 25 points on Friday. Falls outnumbered rises 55 to 53, with turnover totalling $109.5 million.
Trading was patchy, said David Price of Forsyth Barr, although he noted particularly Fletcher Building's 2.8-percent gain to 1189.
Mr Price said his brokerage had upgraded its Fletcher Building valuation to 1300, putting them at the top end of the market in terms of forecasts.
"There's more chance of people having to upgrade their Fletcher Building numbers than not," he said.
Despite jumping to a record high of 1201 last week after a flood of good news, the stock remain cheap particularly against its Australian peers.
Infrastructure investor Infratil closed up nearly 5 percent at a record high of 645, after reporting a jump in annual net profit to $34.7 million. The company was pleased with the performance of many assets including TrustPower, Infratil Energy Australia, and Wellington Airport.
"The results for companies like that don't have a lot of particularly new news in them generally. They're pretty good at sending out updates to people so it doesn't just come as a bolt out of the blue every six months, most of the stuff you've already had put in front of you," Mr Price said.
Retail stocks were mixed despite surprisingly strong first quarter retail sales. Hallenstein Glasson was up 5c at 510, Briscoe Group rose 2c to 173, jeweller Michael Hill fell 18c to 932, and Pumpkin Patch was down 2c at 430.
Top stock Telecom fell 3c to 483, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 6c at 372, F&P Appliances was flat at 367, and Contact Energy rose 5c to 870.
The Warehouse fell 2c to 675, having reported better-than-expected sales figures last week.
Auckland Airport lost a cent to 268, Air New Zealand fell 6c to 275, NZX was up 5c at 990 and technology company Rakon rose 19c to 502 ahead of tomorrow's annual result.
Takeover target Canwest Mediaworks was down a cent at 239, below the 243-per-share offer from Ironbridge Capital.
Among dual-listed stocks, ANZ fell 5c to 3455, AMP rose 11c to 1211, Lion Nathan was steady at 1042 and Westpac rose 20c to 3120.
- NZPA