Listed Otago companies made a rare showing on the New Zealand stock exchange's daily "gainers" index yesterday, with the market capitalisation of biotech Pacific Edge at just over $100 million - up almost 8% at 41c per share yesterday.
Oceana Gold, Pacific Edge and Blis Technologies were all in the top 10 of the gainers index, led by Blis, which posted a 14% gain in share value, albeit to a meagre 0.008c per share, with a market capitalisation of $3.8 million.
Oceana Gold has maintained its position after recently returning to being a more-than-$1 billion company, its shares up 2.1% at $4.20 yesterday, but on light volumes at mid-afternoon.
Oceana is getting closer to commissioning its development gold and copper mine at Didipio in the northern Philippines, which, once in full production, could slash its overall gold production costs.
Bladder cancer diagnostic Pacific Edge, after months of flat trading, hit a low of 18c in late May before gaining impetus and climbing 138% to a high of 43c last week. It traded around 41c yesterday.
Pacific Edge is about to launch its diagnostic cancer test at a United States laboratory that is nearing construction completion, potentially giving access to the world's largest healthcare market.
In comparison with the gainers, Dunedin-based Scott Technology, which last week booked almost 20% increases in revenue and after-tax profit for its full year, had a market capitalisation of $87 million.
However, it was in the exchange's "decliners" index yesterday, down in 16th place.
Scott shares had leapt 34% during the past five weeks to trade at a seven-year high of $2.28 on the day of the full-year announcement last week, but since then had fallen off by 5.7%, trading around $2.15 yesterday.
At 3pm yesterday, pro-biotic manufacturer Blis had 425,000 shares traded, valued at $3775.
Blis announced last month it wanted to raise several million dollars in a capital raising from a share purchase plan to shareholders and also private placement of more than 96 million shares.
Its annual losses for the current year to March 2013 have already been downgraded further by the company from an expected loss of $800,000 to $1.3 million.
