NZ stocks: Tranz Rail in spotlight

12.00pm

Beleaguered rail operator Tranz Rail is again in the sharemarket's spotlight as its stocks hauled back some recent losses.

At 11.30am today $1.4 million worth of Tranz Rail shares had been traded with prices up 2c to 86, a rise of 2.38 per cent.

The rise comes after the rail operator's share price plummeted from 93c on Thursday last week to 78 cents on Friday when Florida-based RailAmerica withdrew from its proposed bid to buy the company.

The same day Australian company Toll Holdings spent $6.2 million upping its stake in Tranz Rail to 10.1 per cent from the 6 per cent it held when RailAmerica announced its bid withdrawal.

Today, Macquarie Equities broker David Cleal said all eyes were on Tranz Rail's shares "to see what Toll is up to today".

Today Tower Asset Management announced it had a 5.21 per cent stake in the rail operator, up from 4.5 per cent.

So far today the sharemarket has been quiet, the benchmark top 50 index lifting 6.84 to 2054.86, a new 11 month high. The top 40 index was up 6.56 to 2024.20, a seven month high.

At 11.35am $24.1 million of stocks had been traded including $12.2 million of Telecom. There were 37 rises and 19 falls among the 108 shares traded.

Auckland Airport continued its run in the wake of Friday's Government decision not to impose price controls on metropolitan airports. It was up 3c to 555.

Fisher and Paykel Appliances was up 15c to 1100 and was due to give its March year report on Thursday.

Among the rising stocks were The Warehouse up 4c to 455, Fletcher Building up 6c to 356, INL up 7c to 432, and Telstra up 4c to 500.

On the downside, Tower fell 1c to 144, Lion Nathan slipped 3c to 631, Hallenstein Glasson ebbed 1c to 285, and AMP dipped 2c to 572.

There was no activity on the American and United Kingdom stockmarkets today, being closed for Memorial Day and Spring Bank Holiday respectively.

- NZPA