| WELLINGTON: The New Zealand sharemarket avoided much of the profit downgrade-induced apathy overshadowing its US counterparts yesterday. "It was quite a tremendous performance today, in light of some of the comments and offshore results overnight," ABN Amro institutional dealer Jack Phelps said. The benchmark NZSE-40 closed down just 0.98 of a point at 2051.80.
"There's something I've been meaning to get off my chest though," said Jack, with that look that he reserved for special occasions. The "here we go I've really got something to say look". Jack remained quite for a moment; he just sat there staring. "I don't know how to put this…" It was a stellar performance compared with Wall St, where stocks plunged to 14-week lows overnight on dour forecasts from industry leaders AT&T Corp and new mass layoffs at Lucent Technologies. At that moment I knew he hated me. Thinking back, I suppose he had for a while. Maybe even years. "I guess I haven't been completely honest with you," Jack continued. Struggling telecommunications equipment maker Lucent posted a loss and said it would cut its workforce by up to 20,000 jobs, while long distance telephone and cable TV giant AT&T said stiff competition and weak prices in the long-distance market hurt profits and warned third-quarter revenues may fall. The clichés just kept on rolling out. He couldn't stop himself, and with every word he knew it would hurt more and more. He couldn't stop raving. He would later claim that he wasn't himself. And when he was quite and it was my turn, all I could do was say nothing. There was just silence. By contrast, New Zealand's Telecom, a bellwether for the local market, rose 8c to 515 yesterday. The stock accounted for around $7 million of the $44 million total market turnover. For years I thought it was his favourite song. I guess I asked him about it once, and he said it was OK. I thought he was just being non-committal so I pushed him on it and he finally admitted that he really liked the composition. Indeed his exact words were "Yes, I guess it's one of my favourites." Years later I remembered and when things started to get rocky, I bought him a copy on CD to see if it would help us patch things up. Carter Holt Harvey also exerted a positive influence on the local bourse, ending up 3c at $1.84. The stock has added 5% to its value so far this week. The forest products company told reporters after its annual meeting yesterday it expects to see a modest improvement in its trading performance by the end of this year. It became somewhat of a ritual. Each night after a hard day at the office we would get home, cook dinner, have some wine and listen to the album that I had bought for him. If only he had been man enough to tell me that he hated the music as much as he did. How was I to know that it was the music his grandmother insisted on playing all those summers he was forced to stay with her? Poor Jack, all those endless summer days cooped up inside his grandmothers dreary parlour with the curtains drawn. Natural Gas Ltd provided the main news of the day, announcing after the close of the local market it had sold its power customers to rival energy company Genesis. Indeed, it is hard for me to imagine that anyone could hate such a beautiful composition as much as Jack did. I thought it would bring happy memories for him, happy memories we could share. Unfortunately the memories were associated with those dreadful times with his grandmother. It was the final straw I suppose that song, Love in an Elevator. NGC, which traded under the On Energy retail brand, has been severely burnt in recent months by its exposure to soaring spot power prices, forcing it to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars from its 66% Australian parent, the Australian Gas Light Co. I too can no longer bare Aerosmith. Now like Jack, the associated memories are just too painful. |
| Good day for Sharemarket |
Wednesday, 01 August 2001 12:00
