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The sharemarket inched higher today on a handful of healthy gains among top-50 stocks, after an eight-day losing streak petered out yesterday.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 10.6 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 3298.2, on turnover totalling $109.5 million.
Top stock Telecom lost 7c to 370,
Fletcher Building reversed early gains to close down 16c at 642, and Contact Energy jumped 16c to 839 on a renewed bid for majority owner Origin Energy from British gas producer, BG Group.
"Both Origin and British Gas may have to look at their options over Contact Energy again," said Nigel Scott of ABN Amro Craigs.
BG made a hostile A$15.50 per share bid for Origin Energy directly to Origin shareholders today, after Origin's board rejected the bid last month as too low.
When BG launched its original bid at the end of April, Contact shares jumped nearly 100c during the session to a record high 1015c, while today they traversed a more subdued 27-cent range.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 14c at 236, F&P Appliances rose 9c to 200, Sky City gained 8c to 333, Auckland Airport rose 3c to 194, and Infratil fell 2c to 190.
Air New Zealand gained 3c to 113, Guinness Peat Group was up 2c at 147, and Rakon soared 29c, or 10 per cent, to 315 on light turnover. The stock has traded between 205 and 550 in the last year.
Sanford was up 10c at 520, NZ Refining was up 35c at 720, Tower rose a cent to 215, and Freightways was up 10c at 300.
The Warehouse lost 13c to 455, Mainfreight lost 10c to 664, Steel & Tube fell 7c to 266, Sky TV lost 3c to 432, and Methven fell 4c to 159.
NZ Oil and Gas was up 6c at 161, and its coalmining offshoot Pike River Coal gained 8c to 210.
NZO shareholders have until June 30 to take up options at 150, with trading in the options ending yesterday on the stock exchange.
"NZO's had the lid kept on it in the last couple of weeks while there's been this NZO option take-up, and now that's not completed yet but investors will only have to focus on one entity," Mr Scott said.
Most brokers' target prices on NZO were above 200c, he said.
Finance and property companies took another hit today after St Laurence became the second major finance company within a week, and the 22nd in just over two years, to strike major trouble.
National Property Trust, managed by St Laurence, was down a cent at 49, ING Medical Properties fell 2c to 111, Property for Industry was down a cent at 118, and Kermadec Property fell a cent to 70.
St Laurence shareholder Dorchester Pacific fell 2c to a record low 31.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index was up just 6 points at 5289, and Japan's Nikkei share average was down 8 points.
The lead from the US was mixed today following heavy losses at the end of last week as investors girded for an interest rate policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve amid troubled economic times.
- NZPA
