NZ stocks: Market edges higher with solid underlying tone

The sharemarket again shrugged off the gyrations of overseas markets and edged higher today.

"It's got a pretty firm undertone," said JB Were broker Murray Rutherford. "It has consistently had that tone despite overseas markets."

The NZSE-40 Capital Index was up 8.65 points at 1987.93 at 11.30am.

Mr Rutherford said the market could well firm further with sellers thin on the ground.

Volume was also steaday at $253 million around half of which was in bellwether Telecom. It was up 2c at 497.

Wall Street ended another choppy session, hitting new multi-year lows in the morning, but ending up over 1 per cent as hope lifted that a West Coast port labour dispute would end soon. US President George W Bush said he will ask a court to force the reopening of West Coast ports.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 78.44 points at 7501.28 and the Nasdaq closed up 9.59 points.

Air NZ was up 3c, 6 per cent, to 52 per cent on a report in the West Australian newspaper that the airline would announce at its October 29 shareholder meeting that Qantas would take a 20-25 per cent stake. The airlines are not commenting.

Auckland Airport was up 7c to 430 although Mr Rutherford doubted that rise was linked to Air New Zealand.

Discount retailers Briscoe and The Warehouse were each firmer after yesterday's strong August retail sales. Briscoe was up 5c to 240 while The Warehouse was up 3c to 715. However, Pacific Retail dropped 4c to 301.

Rarely traded Cube Capital, formerly Damba, rose 7c, 21 per cent, to 40c on turnover of just 1000 shares.

Eldercare was down 1c at 22c after it announced it had bought Australasian dental company Geddes for an undisclosed sum.

AMP was up 10c to 1290.

Newly listed Turners Auction initially fell but reversed that to be up 3c to 222.

Among other to move: DB group gained 8c to 590, Port of Tauranga fell 9c to 339, Ebet rose 4c to 21, Westpac NZ rose 35c to 1465 and Sky TV rose 7c to to 340.

There were 35 rises and 26 falls among the 103 stocks traded.

- NZPA