NZ Stocks: Sharemarket opens quietly

12.45 pm

The sharemarket opened quietly this morning with light turnover across the board, making it difficult to detect any trends.

The NZSE-40 Capital Index was up 2.2 points or 0.11 per cent to 2045.83 shortly after 11am.

"I don't think you can read anything into the market at this stage," said Nigel Scott, of ABN AMRO Craigs Equities. "We are obviously awaiting a few results in the next day or two, Telecom being the major one."

One favourable point was that the New Zealand currency remained firm on both US and Aussie crosses, which normally meant slight firming for equities also.

Mr Scott expected the Reserve Bank statement on monetary policy on Wednesday to also be an influencing factor this week.

"The market's probably not looking for any (interest) rate cuts and yet most people are calling for cuts in the US so overall, it's light on order flow, and there's no real theme to the market so far."

Market leader Telecom, which will announce its annual result tomorrow, was down 3c to 514.

Baycorp, which peaked at $13.90 last week when it announced plans to merge with Australian counterpart Data Advantage, slipped a little further today, down 5c to 1305.

Elsewhere, electricity retailer UnitedNetworks rose 5c to 855; the Warehouse rose 4c to 562; Auckland Airport was up 1c to 358; and Air New Zealand B shares were up 1c to 133 as the company said it was expecting a Government decision on Singapore Airlines' bid for greater ownership of Air NZ by the end of the month. Air NZ A shares were unchanged at 113.

Fisher & Paykel announced it was still on track to separate its appliance and healthcare businesses, but added it was expecting a $2 million lower net profit as a result of a $3 million forex miscalculation. Its shares rose 3c to 1318.

So far there have been 30 rises and 26 falls from the 91 stocks traded.

- NZPA