KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket recovered following a three-day slide last week, boosted by heavyweight Fletcher Building.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index dropped 1.2 percent on Friday and 1.4 percent on Thursday, as interest rate fears weighed on investors after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates.
After a negative start today, the index closed up 22.07 points, or 0.5 percent, at 4205.52. With Australia on holiday, turnover was light at $63.9 million.
"A slight easing in the currency may have helped sentiment towards the end of the day," said Nigel Scott of ABN Amro Craigs.
"A relatively leaderless day really, lack of any real direction."
Fletcher Building rose 2 percent, or 26c, to 1276, recovering after falling below its share placement price of 1260 last week.
In contrast, top stock Telecom lost 4c to 457, having lost 11c on Friday after news it would spend $300 million improving its mobile network.
The announcement came as no real surprise to the market, but the capital investment, combined with a Commerce Commission rejection of Telecom's proposed deadline for local loop unbundling, was seen as putting pressure on the stock.
Telecom investors were happy to sit on the sidelines until question marks over industry regulation and company strategy were answered, Mr Scott said.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances, ex a 9c dividend, fell 13c to 364, while F&P Healthcare rose 9c to 347 on light volume. Auckland Airport rose 6c to 271, Vector was up 2c at 280, and Contact gained 6c to 875.
The Warehouse inched up 2c to 607, after sliding 50c on Friday following the release of a commission decision blocking takeover bids by Woolworths and Foodstuffs.
Pumpkin Patch lost a further 16c to 364, its lowest in about a year after Friday's warning that the strong dollar and interest rate hikes were expected to lower its 2007 profit.
"It's a bit of a waiting game now, a lot of companies updating the market with their continuous disclosure ahead of their June 30 results, so most of them have indicated levels towards the lower end of their guidance," Mr Scott said.
"You can probably start to see, if you hadn't been in The Warehouse for a while, there's patches of value starting to appear in the market place."
Among recent high fliers, Rakon rose 13c to 520, Ryman Healthcare lost 2c to 240, Mainfreight was flat at 735, Port of Tauranga gained 5c to 690, and Air New Zealand was up 3c at 308.
Cavalier Carpets rose 14c to 335, Michael Hill was up 10c at 940, PGG Wrightson was up 4c at 174, and Infratil lost 6c to 324.
- NZPA