NZ stocks: Shares in black as retail, media rally

12.00pm

The New Zealand sharemarket edged slightly into the black this morning following a positive night offshore.

The benchmark NZSE-40 capital index was up 2 points at 1945.41 by 11.30am, on light turnover worth $23 million.

"It's better in line with the offshore markets, but the volumes are still very scant," Forsyth Barr Frater Williams broker David Price said.

Gains among oils and drugs pushed Britain's FTSE 100 to its highest close in a month overnight, while in the United States, stocks rallied as investors brushed aside worries that a US-led war on Iraq was imminent and extended last Friday's buying spree after a long holiday weekend.

The retail sector was leading the local charge today, with The Warehouse recovering from recent losses to trade up 5c at 580 -- off an 18-month low of $5.50 touched last week -- while Briscoe Group shot up 9c to 247.

Media company Independent Newspapers and its 66 per cent subsidiary Sky Network TV rallied ahead of the release of their first half results.

INL, 45 per cent-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, today reported a net after tax profit of $38.8 million for the six months to December 31, up 43 per cent on the same period last year. The result included contributions from both its publishing operations and Sky TV.

Sky TV pared back its losses during the period to $4.37 million, compared with a $13.2 million loss a year earlier.

INL was up 13c at 318 by midday while Sky was steady at 360 after earlier trading up 3c at 363.

Elsewhere on the market, stocks were trading in a holding pattern this morning with investors reluctant to spend up large with the threat of war against Iraq looming.

Top stock Telecom eased 2c to 452; Contact Energy eased 6c to 458 as investors took a profit on its recent strong gains; Auckland Airport was a cent lower at 540; Carter Holt Harvey rose 2c to 173; Fletcher Building eased a further 4c to 355; Lion Nathan rose 8c to 583; Tranz Rail shed 3c to 127; and Waste Management eased off 2c to 210.

Vertex Group, the subject of a corporate play by multi-millionaire businessman and former Air New Zealand chairman Sir Selwyn Cushing and Christchurch businessman George Gould, led the turnover table by volume with 3.2 million shares worth $5 million changing hands. It rose 3c to 161.

Shares in transport and logistics firm Mainfreight were steady at 110 after it posted a net after tax profit of $6.29 million for the nine months to December -- up 37 per cent on the same period last year.

Rises narrowly outpaced falls by 31 to 30 among the 104 stocks traded so far.

- NZPA