KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket continued yesterday's slight firming trend in early trading today, following heavy losses in the first two days of the week.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index was up 11.1 points to 3950.8 at 10.20am on very light turnover of $16 million.
Contact Energy was up 7c to 813 after announcing it and its 51 per cent owner, Origin Energy, had bought the NZ oil and gas assets of Swift Energy.
It also said it would close its New Plymouth power plant at a cost of $25 million and the Government would use "call in" powers over resource consents for Contact's proposed Te Mihi geothermal plant.
Telecom was up 2c to 434 after gaining 4c yesterday, while No.2 stock Fletcher Building was up 1c to 1117.
The Warehouse, which fell 73c on Tuesday and regained 6c yesterday, fell 3c to 550 today as concern about the prospect of takeover lingers.
Another with the same issue, Sky City, was down 2c to 453 today.
However, Auckland Airport, under a hostile partial takeover offer, was up 3c to 275.
NZ Farming Systems was up 5c to 145 after making a disappointing debut yesterday, where the 150 shares fell to 140.
Turner's Auctions was up 10c to 111 on reasonable volume.
In the US, stocks seesawed near unchanged as gains in the energy sector helped offset concern about more fallout from the housing slump.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 25.20 points, or 0.19 per cent, to end unofficially at 13,207.27. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 1.98 points to finish unofficially at 1453.00. But the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 4.98 points to close unofficially at 2601.01.
- NZPA