NZ stocks: Market takes higher ground on Telecom gain

12.00pm

The New Zealand sharemarket headed into positive territory today with market leader Telecom up from the open.

A rebound on Wall St helped boost New Zealand's benchmark NZSX-50 gross index up 0.56 per cent, or 12.7 points, to 2283.31 by late morning, while the top-40 index gained 0.50 per cent to 2185.40.

"It's the end of the quarter, and the end of the half year for some companies so we're seeing that," Stephen Wright of ASB Securities said.

"But we're still only on $19 million (turnover), so it's hardly a vigorous start."

In the United States major market gauges broke a three-session string of losses, with the Nasdaq Composite Index up 32.49 points, or 1.81 per cent, at 1824.56; the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average up 67.16 points, or 0.72 per cent, at 9380.24; and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index up 9.73 points, or 0.98 per cent, at 1006.58.

"It seems solid across the board, of course Freightways has been good," Mr Wright said.

Courier company Freightways, which listed yesterday at 175 -- a 15c or 9 per cent premium to its offer price -- was this morning up 5c from its close, at 177.

Freightways' turnover by late morning was 1.6 million shares valued at $2.8 million.

"I was thinking they'd do a bit better yesterday, it shook loose a few of the weaker sellers yesterday and gone on to bigger and better things today," he said.

Telecom was up 4c at 519, Auckland International Airport gained 4c to 663, Fletcher Building rose 8c to 426, Contact Energy was up 1c at 503, Carter Holt Harvey gained 1c to 171, and discount retailer The Warehouse surged 6c to 551.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 10c at 1265 on turnover of just 3216 shares, Briscoe Group rose 1c to 184, Guinness Peat Group was up 1c at 167, Mainfreight was up 2c at 135, Powerco gained 2c to 187, and Sky City was up 5c at 870.

Rural services company Williams & Kettle was up 10c at 460 following a fall of 10 per cent in annual net profit to $6.42 million announced yesterday.

Independent Newspapers Ltd was down 2c at 453, while its takeover target Sky TV lost 2c to 500.

Lion Nathan shed 5c to 612, Promina was down 1c at 350, Baycorp Advantage lost 1c to 253, and Designer Textiles was down 1c at 93.

Takeover target Tranz Rail was unchanged at 107, 3c below the offer from Australia's Toll Holdings which closes on October 10.

Tower, which has attracted investors after an Australian media report that Promina was interested in buying its general insurance business, was unchanged up 2c at 131.

Total market turnover of 3.93 million, valued at $11.63 million, was topped by Telecom's $6.4 million.

There were 43 rises and 19 falls on the 16 stocks traded.

Turnover by late morning was 8.00 million valued at $18.24 million.

- NZPA