NZ stocks: Market hunkers down for early Christmas

12.00pm

The sharemarket was slightly firmer on light turnover today with investors apparently ready for an early Christmas break.

"It's really quiet in terms of volume and that seems to be a feature, not only this market, but of all global markets. People really seem to be closing down a bit early for Christmas," JB Were broker Murray Rutherford said.

The NZSE-40 capital index was up 2.09 points at 1914.79 at 11.45am having yesterday slunk to 1910.64 -- its lowest point since October 2001. Turnover was worth just $16 million.

Telecom, which yesterday also slid to a 14-month low, dropping 9c to 443 today, was sitting steady on that price.

There was a halt in trading in Goodman Fielder and Burns Philp shares following an announcement that Goodman had received an unsolicited bid from Burns Philp, 57 per cent controlled by New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart.

Mr Hart sold some of Burns Philp last night reportedly to buy 15 per cent of Goodman for A$327 million ($367 million) in an overnight raid.

Goodman shares rose 38c to 203 after the announcement.

Mr Rutherford said there were one million shares crossed in New Zealand but Goodman Fielder was not widely held by local institutions and had no index weighting. There were 1.8 million Goodman shares traded.

Natural Gas shares rose 3c to 140. Mr Rutherford said news that Natural Gas was seeking to terminate cross-border leasing arrangements was a pre-cursor to the sale of the Taranaki Combined Cycle power plant.

"There seems to be optimism there will be a gain on sale above book value when they do sell it."

There were few other moves of note. Mooring Systems was up 25c to 135 on just 2700 shares, GDC was up 10c to 170 and Westpac NZ was up 20c to 1450.

Westpac climbed 15c yesterday after its parent Westpac Banking Corp, said it still expected its earnings to grow by 7 per cent to 9 per cent this year, amid market fears that the banks might have to trim their forecasts.

ANZ fell 105 to 1800 after it warned yesterday its 10 per cent earnings per share growth in 2002/3 was a "stretch target".

Independent Newspapers, was up 4c to 292 after announcing it had taken full control of the Taupo Times and sold the Te Puke Times to rival W&H Newspapers.

There were 30 rises and 27 falls among the 115 stocks traded.

United States stocks were mixed with the Dow down 52 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 8537 and the Nasdaq up 3 points to 1399.

- NZPA