MARKET CLOSE: Sharemarket gains, Fletcher Building among risers

Monday 11th April 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket rose today with a 15 cent rise in the price of Fletcher Building shares to $9.52 a feature of a mixed and lacklustre session.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 16.044 points, or 0.466%, at 3461.319. Turnover was worth $94.6 million. There were 49 rises and 28 falls among the 118 shares traded.

"The overnight markets on Friday were a mixed bag and we've drifted along a bit," said Stuart Hardie, an adviser at Craigs Investment Partners.

"Fletcher Building is an ongoing good news story," he said.

Vector (NZX: VCT ) fell 11c to $2.46 on a day it expressed dissatisfaction with a Commerce Commission proposal to change the basis for a default price path for electricity distribution businesses.

"This overturns the basis under which most lines companies and market participants have been using to estimate the impact of the new regulatory regime for a considerable period of time," Vector said.

"Uncertainty is not good for share prices," Hardie said.

TrustPower (NZX: TPW ) rose 2c to $7.30 and Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) eased 3c to 573.

Turners & Growers was untraded on a day it was announced that Tony Gibbs would not stand for re-election as chairman at the annual meeting on June 30. Tower (NZX: TWR ), which continues to be chaired by Gibbs, rose 5c to $1.86.

Rakon (NZX: RAK ) rose 8c and Scott Technology (NZX: SCT ) rose 3c to $1.45.

Port of Tauranga (NZX: POT ) rose 16c to $8.50. SkyCity (NZX: SKC ) rose 3c to $3.44 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (NZX: FPH ) rose 3c to $3.09.

PGG Wrightson (NZX: PGW ) was unchanged at 53 and Pyne Gold Corp (NZX: PGC ) rose 2c to 28.

Shares in fishing company Sanford (NZX: SAN ) eased 9c to $5.55. Recent strength in the share price triggered a query from NZX market supervision on Friday.

Sanford replied it was affected by worldwide commodity market prices and recent export statistics showed improvements in seafood prices compared with last year.

In the US on Friday (local time), stocks fell late as a spike in oil prices revived worries that inflation would derail the recovery, jolting a market that had been treading water ahead of corporate earnings.

Brent crude futures settled above US$126 a barrel, the highest level in 32 months, as the weak US dollar drove up commodities and intense fighting in Libya raised fears of prolonged supply cuts.

Trading volumes remained low, a sign that investors are holding off major new bets ahead of the release of quarterly earnings beginning next week.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.2% at 12,379.90, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 0.4% at 1328.15, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.6% at 2780.41.

For the week, the Dow rose 0.03%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each lost 0.3%.

NZPA

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