NZ market higher in mixed trading

The New Zealand sharemarket turned around a weak open to end ahead on improved volume today.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 17.02 points, or 0.537 per cent at 3186.484 after initially opening slightly weaker.

Turnover was worth $136.5 million and included $28.26m of trading in Abano Healthcare shares. There were 44 rises and 37 falls among the 116 stocks traded.

Some very large businesses reported today, including Transpower, Solid Energy, Genesis Energy and Landcorp, providing interesting insights on their current and future operating environments but none of the state-owned enterprises are listed on the sharemarket.

Fletcher Building fell 8c to 792 on a day in which it made presentations to investors.

Telecom rose 5c to 262 and expressed disappointment in a High Court ruling that said from 2001 to 2004 it leveraged its position to charge downstream competitors disproportionately high prices for wholesale access to its network.

Abano Healthcare fell 35 to 650 after saying Hearing Holdings, a company associated with Crescent Capital Partners, has agreed to sell 4.5 million shares to institutions.

"Even so there is still reasonable turnover in the market," said Stephen Wright at ASB Securities.

"It is still a mixed market but it is remaining positive overall," he said.

The backdrop was positive with the Australian and most Asian markets firm and futures prices indicating a strong US market after Intel reported after the US market closed yesterday.

Hallenstein Glassons rose 12c to 295 but it was on light volume. NZOG rose 4c to 173, Pike River Coal rose 1c to 111 and Infratil rose 2c to 164.

Auckland Airport rose 4c to 203 and Air NZ eased a cent to 133. TrustPower rose 5c to 747. Mainfreight fell 4c to 537, Nuplex fell 3c to 238 and The Warehouse fell 9c to 436.

Westpac rose 80c to 3280.

In the United States, stocks weakened as disappointing sales from Johnson & Johnson stirred jitters about the strength of earnings, snapping the S&P 500's six-day winning streak.

While J&J's third-quarter profit topped forecasts, that was largely because of cost cuts and lower taxes. The result also pushed European stocks lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 0.2 per cent to end at 9871.06, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.3 per cent to 1073.19, although the Nasdaq Composite Index inched up just 0.04 per cent to 2139.89.

But after-hours results from Intel could bode well for the next US session after the computer chip maker reported earnings and revenue that surpassed expectations.

Further weakness in the US dollar, which slipped to a 14-month low, pushed gold to a record peak and helped lift oil to a seven-week high on worries that US interest rates would remain at rock-bottom lows for some time.

- NZPA