MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares snap 5-day slide; Fletcher up

MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares snap 5-day slide; Fletcher, Contact rise

Oct. 31 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand shares rose, snapping five days of decline, as stronger housing data helped lift Fletcher Building and Contact Energy advanced. Skellerup Group fell after revising its guidance.

The NZX 50 Index gained 16.59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 3957.87. Within the index, 26 stocks rose, 16 fell and eight were unchanged. Turnover was about $133 million.

Fletcher rose 1.7 percent to $7.04, having dipped below $6 yesterday. Building consents rose 7.8 percent in September, the fourth straight gain and biggest growth since March, as intentions to build in Auckland and Christchurch gather pace.

AWF Group, the temporary worker company, rose 6 percent to $2.43 after it reported stronger earnings and noted signs of a pickup in activity in Christchurch.

Skellerup fell 3.5 percent to $1.67 after reducing its guidance. It expects next year’s profit to fall as much as 11 percent from a record result in 2012 as the company enters a tough trading environment.

“The market had got too far ahead of itself,” said James Smalley, an adviser at Hamilton Hindin Greene. “The AGMS are restoring a bit of reality to shares versus earnings.”

Nuplex Industries fell about 1 percent to $3.02 and Cavalier dropped 2.6 percent to $1.89.

OceanaGold was the biggest percentage gainer on the NZX 50, rising 4.3 percent to $4.15. The Melbourne-based company made a loss of US$397,000 in the three months ended Sept. 30, from a profit of US$10.9 million in the same quarter a year earlier, it said in a statement. Gold sales shrank 12 percent to US$91.2 million.

Chorus rose 0.6 percent to $3.38. Chief executive Mark Ratcliffe told shareholders in Wellington the decision to split Chorus out of Telecom as a standalone entity was on the idea that “fibre pricing was set so as to be attractive in comparison to the copper pricing” and that regulation could undermine that goal.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances rose 0.8 percent to %1.275 after Haier got Overseas Investment Office approval for its takeover, the last hurdle since it already has acceptances for more than 50 percent of the stock.

Pumpkin Patch, the children’s clothing chain, rose 3.3 percent to $7.04. Goodman Fielder gained 2.7 percent to 76 cents and NZ Refining gained 2.6 percent to $2.82.

PGW Wrightson, whose controlling shareholder Agria gained an extension on a loan used to help fund its holding, fell 2.9 percent to 34 cents.

(BusinessDesk)

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