MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares gain as yields appeal, Fletcher up

MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares gain as yields appeal, Fletcher up on building consents

April 30 (BusinessDesk) – New Zealand shares rose, with online auction site Trade Me reaching a record after buying the rest of auto-listing aggregator AutoBase and Fletcher Building gaining as building consents continued their steep recovery.

The NZX 50 Index climbed 24.21 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,555.87. Within the index, 32 stocks rose, eight fell and 10 were unchanged. Turnover was a lower-than-average $88.3 million.

Trade Me rose 2.3 percent to $3.61, the highest close since it first listed on Dec. 13. The company spent $11.5 million mopping up the three-quarters of AutoBase it didn’t already own. AutoBase aggregates listings from car, truck and boat deals, which are then displayed on Trade Me.

The purchase "is a fairly logical thing for them to do," said Craig Brown, senior investment analyst at One Path New Zealand. "It's all about controlling the eyeballs."

Fletcher rose 1.1 percent to $6.27. Residential building consents rose to their highest monthly level in two years in March amid growing demand for new housing in Auckland and Christchurch, government figures today showed.

Building consents rose by a third to 1,394 worth $415 million in March, excluding volatile apartment figures, Statistics New Zealand said.

One Path's Brown said while there may have ben an element of renovation projects being rushed through before a rule change that requires home owners to use registered builders, "on balance it's a positive from Fletcher's point of view, albeit off a pretty low base."

NZX, the stock exchange operator, rose 0.7 percent to $2.79, bringing its advance this year to 23 percent. Shareholders today approved plans for a capital return of between $32.5 million and $35 million. The company also said first-quarter revenue rose 3 percent to $13.9 million on increased sales of agricultural information.

Telecom gained 0.6 percent to $2.63, returning to a level it reached last week which was the highest since its Chorus network business was spun off in November. The stock is up 26 percent this year.

Telecom is among companies on the NZX attracting investors to its relatively appealing dividend yield, currently at 11.4 percent. Chorus gained 1.8 percent to $3.43.

"When you've got interest rates at the moment there's a pretty strong need for people to have income from investments they can live on," Brown said.

Goodman Fielder, the Australasian food maker, rose 3.8 percent to 83 cents, leading the NZX 50 higher.

Freightways gained 2.2 percent to $4.15 and Auckland International Airport rose 1.6 percent to $2.53.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances was the biggest decliner, falling 3.6 percent to 54 cents as the kiwi dollar climbed to 82.21 US cents from 81.07 cents in New Zealand on Friday. A stronger dollar erodes the value of offshore revenue when New Zealand firms repatriate overseas sales.

(BusinessDesk)

© Scoop Media