NZ stocks: Telecom continues to sway market

12.00 pm

The sharemarket continued to dance to Telecom's tune and was up this morning, mainly due to Telecom's 8c rise.

Telecom has had a volatile start to the year, beginning at 500 and trading as high as 549. Today it was up 8c to 537 just after 11am.

The NZSE-40 index was up 8.31 points to 2109.82. Volume of $22.6 million was again boosted by solid off-market trade in leading Australian stocks.

There was also 1.1 million Contact Energy shares sold worth $4.3 million. Contact was unchanged at 384.

Carter Holt Harvey was steady at 188 after gaining 7.5 per cent in the last two trading days in the wake of its December quarter result.

Lion Nathan gained 2c to 582 on $2.2 million worth of shares, and retail darling Briscoes touched a new high, up 5c to 174.

Fletcher Building was also steady at 291, Baycorp was down 4c at 716, DB Group, gained 5c to 655 to hit a new 12 month high, Pacific Retail rose 5c to 225, and Westpac NZ was up 10c to 1730.

Air New Zealand was steady at 31 after its fortunes got an updraft from international rating agency Standard and Poor's which said the airline was in line for a modest rating upgrade.

The $885 million government capital injection had lightened debt ratios and given the airline more financial flexibility, the agency said.

"This improvement, together with a scaling down of its operations to rebuild its profitability amid depressed industry conditions, could lead to a modest rating upgrade," one of S&P's ratings directors Jeanette Ward said.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 20c to 1575, while its appliance cousin added 10c to 1030.

All up, there were 33 rises and 32 falls among the 114 stocks traded.

- NZPA