NZ market directionless, little changed

The New Zealand sharemarket was directionless today and closed little changed.

The NZX 50 ended up 7.714 points, or 0.244 per cent, at 3166.708 having opened slightly lower at 3149.99, a four-week low.

Turnover was worth $89.44 million. There were 32 rises and 42 falls among the 110 stocks traded.

Craigs Investment Partners adviser Stuart Hardie said the market closed flat without any influential news today.

"New Zealand is just tracking along, following overseas markets really.

"Things are sort of jumping around a little bit and we are really directionless at the moment and waiting for some sort of news to push the market along."

Among the leading shares, Fletcher Building was down 12c to 799, Telecom went up 4c to 254 and Contact Energy was also up 4c to 614.

NZ Refining Co was down 1c to 510, Infratil was down 1c to 158, and Pike River Coal was also down 1c to 110.

Shares rising included Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which gained 4c to 312, Sky TV went up 1c to 479, and AMP rose 5c to 735.

ANZ Bank went down 14c to 284, Tower dropped 2c to 170 and Kiwi Income Property Trust fell 1c to 108.

Westpac rose 30c to 3220 as investors welcomed a positive outlook in its annual result statement.

New Image fell 4c to 57 and said there was not material information that had not been disclosed when queried on the price movement by NZX Regulation.

In the United States, the Dow dipped while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose slightly as a Morgan Stanley downgrade of semiconductors weighed on the sector, while deal news bolstered views that merger activity was picking up.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp in a deal that values the railroad company at US$34 billion ($47.8 billion).

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.1 per cent at 9780.75, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 0.4 per cent at 1045.77, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.2 per cent at 2052.69.

- NZPA