The New Zealand sharemarket ended little changed today but selected stocks continued to advance with brokers noting volume trading in Michael Hill and Pyne Gould Corporation.Pike River Coal advanced 7c to $1.16 to a five-month high and answered an NZX Reg
The New Zealand sharemarket ended little changed today but selected stocks continued to advance with brokers noting volume trading in Michael Hill and Pyne Gould Corporation.
Pike River Coal advanced 7c to $1.16 to a five-month high and answered an NZX Regulation price query by saying it was complying with disclosure rules.
Air NZ advanced 3c to $1.45 to a two-year high and Infratil continued a run higher in the wake of its purchase of Shell downstream assets, rising 1c to $1.77.
The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 2.482 points, or 0.075%, at 3310.247. Turnover was worth $77.47 million. There were 39 rises and 33 falls among the 112 stocks traded.
James Lee, head of institutional equities at First NZ Capital, said there were some good lines through the market. About 8 million Michael Hill shares traded at 68c, which was a reasonable discount to the 74c close today.
"They had a quarterly sales number which was roughly in line with expectations but we've seen a decent line cleared today," he said.
Also, eight million Pyne Gould shares traded at 48c, and the shares closed up 1c at 48c.
Telecom eased a cent to $2.21. Mr Lee said investors were focused on what role Telecom would have in government ultrafast broadband plans, rather than the issues in the media this week.
Pike River Coal was rising in sympathy with corporate activity in the coal sector in Australia, while Air NZ had been well bid after a broker upgrade earlier this week. It said today it would be code sharing with Continental Airlines.
NZ Windfarms rose 2c to 25c in a positive reaction to the resolution of issues with its turbine supplier.
Contact Energy eased 2c to 641 and Fletcher Building rose 1c to $8.38.
Blis Technologies rose 0.7c to 10.5 and Scott Technology rose 2c to $1.28.
Sealegs fell 1c to 18 and Smartpay fell 0.1c to 3.9c. Hellaby fell 4c to $1.62.
SkyCity fell 2c to 326 and Ebos fell 10c to $6.45.
