The New Zealand sharemarket ran out of steam today despite heavy interest in Carter Holt Harvey.
"The market was reasonably buoyant at the beginning of the day and firmed up a touch but the actual index did close down and generally it's a bit mixed," Peter Lynds of Direct Broking
said.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index fell 11.61 points to 3366.52 on solid trading worth $177 million.
The NZSX all capital index was down 2.03 points at 1052.22.
Carter Holt Harvey dominated trading, with a turnover of 71m shares, a day after news that New Zealand tycoon Graeme Hart had snatched control of the forestry company.
Mr Hart's Rank Group bought US company International Paper's 50.5 per cent stake and under exchange takeover rules, must now launch a full takeover at the same price he offered IP of $2.50 a share.
Today the share price slid a cent to 255, but it was still higher than Mr Hart's offer, indicating that investors are either hoping he will make the company more profitable or trigger a higher bid.
Mr Lynds said the Carter Holt offer could also be good for the rest of the market.
"There could be a number of people who are either selling on the market or taking the offer, but whichever way it goes the cash that may come up will hopefully be reinvested back into the market in other areas."
Elsewhere on the market, AMP rose 15c to 786 after the Australian funds manager posted a 22 per cent jump in first-half profit, nd promised a "substantial" capital return to shareholders early next year.
No 2 stock Contact Energy lost a further 9c to 748 after dropping 14c yesterday when it reported a lower than expected $138 million profit for nine months to June, although brokers said it was still a solid result.
The market's biggest stock Telecom continued to rise ahead of its dividend and special dividend payout next week . It closed up a cent to 620 on total turnover worth $30m.
Skellmax was up 3c to 141 following news of an 8 per cent rise in full year profit yesterday.
Fletcher Building peaked at 770 but ended flat at 760 after a strong post-result run.
Other result-driven moves included Nuplex, up 9c to 445, and Sky TV off 5c to 595 ahead of their results tomorrow, and Sky City fell 8c to 480 ahead of its annual report on Monday.
Rises included Guinness Peat up a cent to 210, NGC up 10c to 420, and Vector up 7c to 312.
Falls included ANZ down 28c to 2405, Telstra down 10c to 516, and Westpac down 15c to 2175.
In total, there were 43 stocks up and 56 down among the 158 traded.
- NZPA
The New Zealand sharemarket ran out of steam today despite heavy interest in Carter Holt Harvey.
"The market was reasonably buoyant at the beginning of the day and firmed up a touch but the actual index did close down and generally it's a bit mixed," Peter Lynds of Direct Broking
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