While the imminent results from a full year's trading will be the first delivered during the credit crunch and global recession, just as crucial will be the delivery of full-year forecasts.
"Most under scrutiny will be the earnings outlook and dividend policies.
But the fundamentals remain the same, with the emphasis still on consumer demand at a time of rising unemployment," ABN Amro Craigs broker Peter McIntyre said.
He described the quarter as "strong" compared with the previous three months and, considering the recession, the daily turnover of $98.5 million was "reasonable", with the "underpinning" of the market seen by the return of institutional investors.
"The volatility [of stocks] remained high and reflected the human nature of investing, with some stocks oversold and others overbought," Mr McIntyre said.
Overall, the top three sectors during the quarter were investment (banking and investment companies, with a 20.7% return on dividends and capital gains), services at 11.1%, and the primary sector at 9.6%.
The average return of the top 50 companies was 7.9%.
Mr McIntyre said with the banking and housing sectors in the United States having been responsible for the credit crisis, it was positive news that the investment sector was leading the recovery and being mirrored in New Zealand.
There were "no surprises" in that the primary sector had the smallest sector gain at 9.6% given the market volatility of commodity markets during the past 12 to 18 months, highlighting global prices for milk powder and the negative effect on Fonterra's forecast payouts for milk solids.
Mr McIntyre described the equity market strength as a "bear market bounce" as opposed to any sustained rally, and while there were positives, the issue of excessive debt in global markets remained unresolved.
"There's been two quarters of severe uncertainty and financial crisis. The past quarter has seen more signs of stability, but we expect only a slow recovery in the economy," Mr McIntyre said.
He said Fisher and Paykel Appliances' 95% share gain was on the back of its $80 million deal in May with Chinese manufacturing giant Haier taking a 20% cornerstone stake and more than $200 million of capital raising.
The deals were designed to pay down mounting debt, prompting its bank to roll over $80 million in loans repayments, accumulated from Appliance's decision to relocate offshore manufacturing to low-wage economies during the past three years.
Pumpkin Patch's 45% gain came from investor confidence in its tough decision to close 20 of its 35 US stores, placing its US subsidiary in protective Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reducing forecast losses by about $10 million and lowering debt levels.
"Those [top five] results all revolved around capital raising and debt reduction.
"Management [stock] buy-ins also gave the message the stock may have been undervalued," Mr McIntyre said, noting all top five companies had some management buy-ins.
Lion Nathan's positive 44% gain reflected the interest of Japanese brewing giant Kirin's $4.4 billion April takeover offer for the company.
In May, Lion forecast a rise in full-year, after-tax profit to $US315 million.
APN News and Media had a successful capital raising campaign of $A99 million to pay down debt and generally strengthen its balance sheet, while Tower's 34% share price gain reflected its good result and $81.7 million in capital raising.
The forthcoming full-year reporting season for the year to June, beginning in the middle of next month, was going to be the most telling since the start of recession early last year as it would reflect a full year's's impact of the credit crunch on balance sheets, Mr McIntyre said.
