Skellerup early highlight of NZ sharemarket

Skellerup was the highlight of early trading on the New Zealand sharemarket after the company announced a 69 percent rise in full year net profit to $20.2 million.

The result reflected an improved trading environment as customers recovered from the impact of the global financial crisis, new business from a focus on new products, and operational improvements, Skellerup said.

Its shares were up 5c in early trading to 127, with the benchmark NZX-50 index up 6.29 points to 3293.81 around 10.15am, having ended up 17.9 points yesterday.

Restaurant Brands rose 3c to 230, Freightways lifted 3c to 315, The Warehouse gained 3c to 345, Sky TV was up 2c to 572, NZ Oil & Gas added 2c to 64, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare gained 2c to 230, Fletcher Building was up 2c to 787, and Telecom edged up 1c to 271.

Air New Zealand, which reported a 45 percent fall to $75 million in full year normalised earnings before tax, was down 1c to 110.

OceanaGold fell 12c to 270 and Sky City was down 3c to 346.

In the United States, stocks posted strong gains for a second day as investors jumped back into beaten-down financial shares and backed away from safer assets such as gold in volatile trading.

The stock market swung back and forth as investors anticipated a key speech from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke towards the end of the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 1.3 percent at 11,319.27, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1.3 percent at 1177.54, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.9 percent at 2467.69.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Skellerup shares rise to four-month high on earnings outlook, Craigs upgrades stock to buy
Skellerup shares surge, best performer on the NZX 50 Index, as profits seen rising
Skellerup beats guidance with 23% drop in FY profit
UPDATE Skellerup scotches $7.3 mln claim in rubber ring dispute
Skellerup in $7.3 mln stoush over faulty rubber rings
Skellerup shares sink 10 percent as 1H earnings disappoint; cuts annual guidance
Skellerup flags smaller profit in 2013, shares fall 3.5 percent
Skellerup taps Rakon CFO Graham Leaming for same role
Skellerup reports record profit, increases dividend
Skellerup shifts chief financial officer Keogh to new Agri division role