NZ stocks: Shares dodge Black Friday jitters

6:00pm

The New Zealand sharemarket dodged any 'Black Friday' jitters to close in positive territory today.

The benchmark NZSE-40 capital index ended up 9.81 points at 1922.51 having yesterday slunk to 1910.64 -- its lowest point since October 2001. Turnover was moderate at $65 million.

"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.

Telecom, which yesterday also slid to a 14-month low, dropping 9c to 443, today recovered a cent to 444.

The main talking point on the local bourse today was an audacious $2.5 billion raid on Goodman Fielder by Kiwi entrepreneur kiwi Graeme Hart following a lightning overnight raid for 14.9 per cent.

New Zealand's richest man plans to put the cereal and snacks group into the pot with his 57.58 per cent-held spices and yeast company, Burns Philp, and the recently bought New Zealand Dairy Foods (NZDF) to create a mega Australasian food group.

Goodman shares rose 41c to 206 after the announcement.

Natural Gas shares rose a cent to 138. 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."

Independent Newspapers Ltd added 7c to 295 after announcing a further reshuffle of its newspaper stable today.

INL said it would sell the Te Puke Times newspaper to rival W&H Newspapers, publisher of the New Zealand Herald.

At the same time, INL, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd empire, has bought from W&H the remaining 32 per cent of the Taupo Times Ltd it did not already own.

Yesterday, INL said it plans to buy lifestyle magazine Cuisine.

No prices were disclosed for the sales.

Other movers today included Auckland Airport, up 8c to 547; Baycorp Advantage, up 3c to 208; Contact Energy, up 2c to 399; Sky TV, up 7c to 325; Fletcher Building, down 2c to 330; Fisher and Paykel Appliances, up 20c to 1035; Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, down 10c to 990; Sky City, up 8c to 772; and The Warehouse, up 2c to 706.

There were 52 rises and 45 falls among the 136 stocks traded.

- NZPA