NZ stocks: Two-year high for Telecom drives market higher

The rise of market gorilla Telecom to a two-year high today helped the sharemarket add to yesterday's big gain of more than 1.1 per cent.

At 11.30am, the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 7.55 points at 2476.41 while the NZSX-40 capital index was up 4.90 points at 2302.50 -- just shy of a six-year high.

There was no lead from Wall Street with US indicies flat.

There were just 7.5 million shares worth $33 million traded locally in the first hour and a half.

Telecom drove the market up yesterday with a 21c rise and today added another 3c to 548 -- its highest price in two years. Brokers said the easing of the New Zealand dollar, almost US1c down in the past day, has encouraged foreign buyers to invest.

However, the market was largely bereft of features.

Sky City recovered from a 3c fall yesterday on concerns about its plans to buy the MGM Mirage casino in Darwin, Australia. It had fallen 9c on Wednesday ahead of the announcement it was in talks to buy the casino. But today it was up 7c to 462

Contact Energy fell 3c to 560 while No 2 stock Carter Holt Harvey recovered from early weakness to be up 1c to 196.

This year's star performer, Christchurch engineering company Mooring Systems, put on another 20c today to lift the price to 290 and bring its gains for the year to date to 60 per cent.

NZ Refining, the beneficiary of higher prices for refined petrol, gained another 9c today to 1620.

GDC fell 2c to 19c after news it had terminated its contract with Telecom where the latter resold GDC's software.

Other leaders to move included: Lion Nathan, down 4c to 686, Waste Management, up 4c to 416, Fisher & Paykel Appliances, up 10c to 373, and Tourism Holdings, down 3c to to 154.

There were 27 rises and 29 falls among the 104 stocks traded.

In the US, stocks ended near unchanged as robust manufacturing data, merger speculation and strong earnings from IBM underpinned the market, but disappointment over results from some other technology companies capped gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 15.48 points, or 0.15 per cent, to 10,553.85, and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.53 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 1132.05, the highest since April 2002. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index, however, fell 2.05 points, or 0.10 per cent, to 2109.08.

- NZPA