A2 Milk gained 0.6 per cent to $12.47.
In a statement today, the company said it hasn't seen any change in growth in China and it's confident in its business after the shares weakened on news that competitors have begun selling their own A2-branded infant formulas in China.
The stock dropped 6.5 per cent last Wednesday when Nestle confirmed it is had launched an A2 product under its Illuma brand, with the product called Atwo and sold in China, and fell a further 4.2 per cent on Thursday.
A2 said today that it noted the recent media commentary but "is confident that the past investment in its brand has established a strong consumer franchise which will continue to strengthen as its level of investment and distribution continues to grow", and said it "continues to perform strongly in each of its key markets and in particular has not seen any change in the growth of its China business".
"They started really on the back foot, earlier today it was off a good 6 or 7 per cent, things have recovered though to be slightly in the green now," Lister said. "The whole market recovered in the day and when the Australian market opened, the Aussies saw a bit of value in A2 at those levels.
"Ultimately we'll have to wait and see whether any of those competitors gain a foothold and that impacts their market share, or whether their brand is strong enough to maintain that market position."
The worst performer was Heartland Bank, down 2.8 per cent to $1.71, with Trade Me Group dropping 1.8 per cent to $4.35.
Outside the benchmark index, Orion Health fell 8.6 per cent to 64c - a record low.
The healthcare software developer missed guidance for annual sales due to delays in finalising some large deals and said it's targeting annual savings of up to $30m in a "substantial" restructure of global operations.
The Auckland-based company's revenue was between $170m and $173m in the year ended March 31, missing already downgraded guidance of $175m to $190m, it said.
"Obviously well, well below where the IPO was priced a few years back, they basically downgraded their revenue guidance after a few deals didn't come through," Lister said.
"They were hoping to break even in the second half of this year, that's not going to happen now.
"They'll make a loss, not the worst loss they've made in recent years but a loss nonetheless. It has been a pretty rough few years for Orion and there doesn't look to be anything positive on the horizon," Lister said.
"It does raise questions over whether they need to raise capital again, whether they've got enough money to keep going - certainly not if they keep going the way they are, and that's the reason for the share price being down. It's a real fall from grace which started a long time ago."
Metro Performance Glass rose 1.4 per cent to 75c.
It said its full-year normalised net profit was $18m to $18.5m on the back of weaker-than-expected Australian performance as well as some unexpected costs related to a change in leadership. It is forecasting reported net profit will be $16m to $16.5m versus a net profit of $19.4m in the prior year.
"It's not quite as dire a situation as you're seeing with Orion, but still another bit of negative news from a company that has been a huge disappointment," Lister said. "It hasn't been sold off too heavily, maybe the market wasn't hugely surprised because they've got a track record of disappointing."
