Shares quietly firmer after rugby loss

By NZPA

Monday 8th October 2007

The sharemarket was a tad firmer but volumes were quiet as the nation mourned its ejection from the Rugby World Cup.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 11.19 points or 0.2% to 4295.24 on turnover worth $104 million.

Trading was led by Telecom which rose 4c to $4.60 as shareholders reinvested some of the $1.1 billion returned to them in a one-in-nine share cancellation on Friday.

Record highs for US equity indexes on Friday night were not reflected in the local market, Hamilton, Hindin Greene partner Grant Williamson said.

"It's quite quiet trading here today as I think people are still recovering from the shock loss at the weekend," he said.

Most of the volume was being seen in in-play stocks Auckland Airport and Sky City. Auckland Airport closed flat at $3.09 on trading worth $12.6 million, while Sky City fell 7c to $5.32 on $7.5 million worth of shares.

Abano Healthcare, "one of the best performing stocks of the last year," jumped 32c or 8% to $4.32, after an upgraded earnings forecast.

It also said it had received approaches from parties other than Masthead, a 19.9% shareholder seeking 51%. Masthead indicated it would not be raising its proposed offer of $3.85 per share.

Other movers included Fisher & Paykel Appliances up 7c to $3.62, F&P Healthcare down 2c to $3.32, Contact down 7c to $9.28, Fletcher Building up 10c to $12.30 and Nuplex, down 9c to $7.49 after paying out a 20.5c dividend today.

Cavotec MSL, formerly Mooring Systems, rose 10c to $5.10 after announcing a deal with a division of US energy company Chevron to work on a range of ship and shore-based mooring initiatives.

NZOG gained a cent to $1.01 as the company issued profile-raising information. Williamson said NZOG was trying to move from being a small exploring company to a mid-sized Australasian producer and explorer.

Offshore, the Australian sharemarket touched a new lifetime high, with US-focused firms such as James Hardie Industries gaining after solid US jobs data boosted optimism about the US economy.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index rose as much as 1.2% to an all-time high of 6684.4, but had eased to 6667.0 by 4.14pm NZT.

It is a public holiday in the US tonight but on Friday, all time highs were hit after a solid employment report showed the US economy added more jobs in September than economists had expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 0.66%, to end at 14,066.01, off a record intraday high of 14,124.54.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped 0.96%, to 1557.59 -- a record close.

The Nasdaq Composite Index finished up 1.71%, at 2780.32, at one point hitting its highest level since January 2001.

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