NZ shares inch up

The New Zealand sharemarket failed to make much headway in light trading today, with very little company news to nudge stocks in either direction.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 1.2 points at 3043.9, a similar gain to yesterday's.

"We stayed a point up - neither dramatically up nor down, very hard to generally make any conclusions," said Stephen Wright of ASB Securities.

A credit downgrade for Greece by Moody's overnight and debt problems in other European countries weighed on global equity markets, with Wall Street giving up earlier gains to close little changed.

Across the Tasman, the market was marginally more positive with a 0.2 per cent gain for the S&P/ASX 200 Index late this afternoon.

On the New Zealand market, top stock Telecom rose 2c to 190, Sky TV was up 16c at 480 and Infratil was up 2c at 161, while Fletcher Building lost 9c to 805, Contact Energy fell 5c to 589 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 3c to 320.

Vector rose 3c to 214 after announcing it would benefit from recent tax changes by an estimated $20 million after tax for the June year. It will also receive $53m from Transpower for access rights to its infrastructure as part of a conditional agreement to ensure security of power supply.

Restaurant Brands continued to outperform, rising 4c or nearly 2 per cent to 230. Other stocks to gain included Pumpkin Patch, up 3c at 207, Trustpower, up 4c at 724, and Hallenstein Glasson, up 9c at 359.

The Warehouse fell 4c to 356, and NZ Oil and Gas fell 2c to 134 after yesterday's disappointing news that there was no commercial oil at the offshore Tui SW-2 well.

- NZPA