16 Aug 2010

NZ sharemarket makes slight gain

10:37 pm on 16 August 2010

The New Zealand sharemarket rose 8 points, or 0.3%, to 3024 by the close of trade on Monday on turnover of $41 million.

Fletcher Building was down 12 cents to $7.23 per share, Telecom was up 1c to $2.07 and Contact Energy gained 2c to $5.82.

Sky City Entertainment was unchanged at $2.99 and Sky Network Television was also unchanged at $5.01.

Air New Zealand was unchanged at $1.96 following Pacific Blue's announcement it would stop flying domestic routes in New Zealand from 18 October and concentrate on the trans-Tasman and medium-haul international routes.

The Warehouse fell 3c to $3.46.

Freightways gained 7c to $2.75 after the courier and information management firm's annual profits fell by a third due to the patchy economic recovery and one-off items.

NZ Farming Systems Uruguay rose 5c to 63c after a rival takeover bid by Uruguay-based Union Agriculture Group, which is offering 60c a share - 5c more than the bid by Singapore's Olam International.

Allied Farmers was down a tenth of a cent to 2.6c.

Pyne Gould Corporation was up 2c to 43c after issuing a profit upgrade, while DNZ Property Fund also gained 2c to 99c on its stock market debut.

At 5.20pm, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 70.40 US, 79.02 Australian, 45.12 pence, 60.39 yen and 0.55 euro. The Trade Weighted Index stood at 65.92.