Banking stock debuts cautiously in positive market

Shares in the newly merged Building Society Holdings opened cautiously on the New Zealand sharemarket as investors held back, with the shares opening at 95c, before easing in a positive market.

The closing price of 88c, which matched the shares' issue price, valued the company at $264m. Just 304,136 of the 300 million shares issued on January 7 traded hands.

Building Society Holdings was established by combining Pyne Gould Corp's Marac Finance, CBS Canterbury and Southern Cross Building Society.

The business is one of the largest finance companies now operating in this country, and it also has plans to obtain a banking licence.

Pyne Gould Corp, parent company of Marac, lost a cent to a record closing low of 35c.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 9.72 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 3348.46, following yesterday's 14-point fall.

"The market's quite positive today even though the index is up only a few points, there's a bit of buying across the market," Mr Burke said.

A weaker New Zealand dollar against the Australian dollar helped attract some overseas buying, which supported most leading stocks.

Fletcher Building rose 5c to 778, having lost 16c yesterday after announcing an increased bid for Australian plumbing supplies firm Crane Group, which the Crane board approved.

Contact Energy was up 2c at 617, Auckland Airport gained 3c to 227, casino company Sky City was up 3c at 331 and Sky TV rose 5c to 540.

Telecom fell 3c to 225.

Infrastructure investor Infratil rose a cent to 189 and networks company Vector was 2c higher at 250.

Other stocks to rise included seafood exporter Sanford, up 9c at 509, Pumpkin Patch, up 5c at 147, and Mainfreight, 12c higher at 826.

The Warehouse gave up some of last week's gains to close down 10c at 355, Trustpower fell 4c to 720, and Air New Zealand lost 2c to 138.

Dual-listed stocks were firmer, with ANZ up 38c at 3068, Wespac rose 24c to 2974, and AMP gained 3c to 685.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was flat at 4753.

Earlier in the United States, stocks rose on healthy earnings and signs of a strengthening economy, even as a surge in the price of oil highlighted the potential for increased political risk in the Middle East to upset markets.

For the month, the Dow rose 2.7 per cent, the S&P 500 added 2.3 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.8 per cent. It was the fourth month of gains in the last five for the three indexes.

- NZPA