NZ stocks: Market takes late turn into the black

The New Zealand sharemarket had a late change of heart to end in positive territory today having spent much of the session below last night's closing level.

The benchmark NZSX-50 gross index closed up 4.07 points, or 0.18 per cent, at 2275.56, and the top-40 index was up 0.29 per cent at 2178.50.

Turnover of 28.63 million stocks valued at $83.58 million was topped by Telecom's $21 million.

Alan Wills of Forsyth Barr Frater Williams said the market was quite busy today with interest across the board.

"Generally speaking the market's in quite good heart, there's been a move in Telecom late in the day which is obviously going to pop the index up.

"The overseas markets were a bit mixed overnight but in the Asia region most of the markets are in positive territory now.

"We're just going through this thing where we're through the result period, there's not a lot of new corporate news going on but there seems to be good underlying support for the market around these levels."

Market leader Telecom ended unchanged at 524, off its session low of 521.

Rural services company Wrightson Group was down 2c at 145 as investment company Rural Portfolio Investments (RPI) appeared to fall short of the 19.9 per cent stake it was seeking.

Earlier today RPI confirmed it had secured a nearly 6 per cent stake, and Mr Wills said that it had less than half its target by deadline of 5pm today.

Yesterday, Dunedin-based RPI made a $200 million stand at 145 a share.

Elsewhere on the market, Auckland International Airport was up 8c at 675, Air New Zealand rose 1c to 51, discount retailer The Warehouse was up 1c at 536, Sky TV gained 5c to 499 and Independent Newspapers Ltd, which is seeking to take over the rest of Sky, was up 2c at 454.

Waste Management gained 3c to 372, Contact Energy was up 6c at 489, financial services company Tower rose 4c to 121, ANZ was up 20c at 2070, Turners Auctions was up 7c at 405, and Fletcher Forests gained 2c to 128.

Pacific Retail was up 8c at 245 despite warning at its AGM today that second-half earnings will not make up ground lost in its failed bid for Farmers department stores in the first six months.

Investment company Pure New Zealand, which said today it is selling part of its dietary supplements business, was up 0.9c at 4.5.

On the down side, Carter Holt Harvey was down 1c at 173, Guinness Peat Group was down 1c to 166, takeover target Owens lost 1c to 107 while suitor Mainfreight was up 3c at 133, and fish exporter Sanford lost 11c to 500.

There were 49 rises and 43 falls on the 145 stocks traded.

On Wall St the Dow Jones industrial average gained 40.63 points to 9576.04; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 6.21 points to 1029.03; and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 27.10 points to 1901.72.

- NZPA