NZ stocks: Telecom bounce lifts NZ sharemarket

12.00 pm

An 8c rebound by Telcom to 515 helped lift the sharemarket in morning business.

The market got support from Wall Street where the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average finished up 133.47 points, 1.36 per cent, at 9968.15 and the technology-loaded Nasdaq Composite Index, up 8.30 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 1724.54 on Friday.

The NZSE-40 capital index was up 5.84 points to 2081.42 at 11.35am.

Brokers said turnover was very light although an off-market trade of 2.6 million News Corp shares worth $32 million boosted overall turnover to $45.5 million.

Just over $1.5 million of Telecom shares traded. As well as the controversy over Telecom's accounting of some profits, speculation that Telecom's 21.5 per cent owner, Verizon, was attempting to sell its stake down to a stated preferred stake level of under 20 per cent, pushed Telecom down to 507 last week. It had traded as high as 548 after its result on Tuesday.

There was little other action. Auckland Airport was unchanged at 389 ahead of its result this week, while Fletcher Forests was up 1c to 26 in both the ordinary and preference shares. It reports tomorrow. The Warehouse was up 2c at 659.

Cedenco was up 7c to 250 and F&P Healthcare was up 5c to 1085.

Carter Holt Harvey was down 3c to 193, Independent Newspapers down 1c to 395, North Port down 5c at 265 and Hallenstein Glasson down 4c at 280.

Horizon Energy jumped 25c to 1300, United Networks was up 10c to 810 and AMP lost $1.01 to 2240.

There were 35 stocks up and 26 down among the 108 traded.

- NZPA