The market is showing its festive side
In central Florida over the weekend, public defender Robert Wesley held his annual clothing drive for indigent clients who can’t afford professional attire. Wesley says he wants jurors to focus on the facts of a case, not a client’s Boys Shoes.Also over the weekend, homeless and mentally ill people received free haircuts, food and clothing at a Christmas celebration held by the Pathways community mental health center in Orlando.
To the south, Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade treated 300 children to an afternoon at Santa’s Enchanted Forest, while teammate Udonis Haslem handed out gifts to foster kids.
The NZX 50 Index fell rose 19.14 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 3,319.1. Within the index, 24 stocks gained, 17 declined and nine were unchanged. Turnover was $77.7 million.
Pumpkin Patch, the children’s clothing retailer, rose 5 per cent to $1.67 and Kathmandu Holdings, the outdoor clothing chain, rose 2.9 per cent to $1.78. Warehouse Group, New Zealand’s biggest listed retailer, rose 2 per cent to $3.65.
“The market is showing its festive side, and what enthusiasm there is out there is buying,” said Rickey Ward, domestic equities manager at Tyndall Investment Management.
F&P Appliances, the whiteware manufacturer, rose 5.9 per cent to 54 cents.
PGG Wrightson, the rural services company, rose 2.1 per cent to 48 cents, after NZ Farming Systems Uruguay said it had secured a $50 million loan from majority shareholder Olam International.
Part of the loan will be used to pay all outstanding balances owed to Wrightson for performance and management fees, and fees related to the buyout of the management contract. Shares in Farming Systems fell 4.9 per cent to 58 cents.
Last week, Wrightson revised its annual earnings forecast downwards to between $15 million and $18 million, compared with $23 million previously, due to a slow recovery in the agricultural sector and the disposal of the NZ Farming Systems management contract.
“When you evaluate the profit downgrade last week it was not structural, and it more seasonal than anything else,” Ward said.
“When you take that into account people seem to think that it was oversold.”
Telecom Corp. rose 0.9 per cent to $2.23 after the Commerce Commission said New Zealand’s biggest telephone company would not face regulatory shackles over its premium copper-based broadband service that is set to be unveiled next year.
That means Telecom can set the pricing for its second-generation Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL2) services without facing the same rules governing fixed-line broadband.
South Port New Zealand, which operates the nation’s southern-most port at Bluff, rose 7.1 per cent to $2.70 after it said 2011 earnings will exceed its forecast range because of increased volumes of logs exported to China and a return to normal output from the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter.
Full-year profit will exceed the $3.5 million to $3.9 million range given in the Women Shoescompany’s 2010 annual report. In the first five months of the year, total cargo volume was 1.09 million tonnes, up from 820,000 tonnes in the same period a year earlier.
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