KEY POINTS:
New Zealand shares ignored a strong day across the Tasman, closing nearly flat after a mixed session.
"We had a positive open but profit-taking has seen those gains pretty much given up," Grant Williamson, a partner with Hamilton, Hindin, Greene said.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index closed up just 3.6 points or 0.09 per cent to 3711.73 on a robust $114m turnover.
Rises outpaced falls 52 to 40 on 130 stocks traded.
Today's trading was a "disappointment" compared with a 1.4 per cent late afternoon rise in Australia and a positive Friday session on Wall St .
"Certainly the world equity markets have settled down somewhat over the past week or so and that's allowed our market to just hold its own ground at the moment," Mr Williamson said.
Contact Energy continued to make a strong recovery due to rising power prices in a dry summer. It rose 10c to 786 on top of a 14c gain on Friday.
Mr Williamson said Contact was coming back as a good defensive stock.
However, Fletcher Building was still struggling ahead of its half year result this month, ending down 21c to 995 today.
Mr Williamson said investors appeared to be focused on a flattening residential housing market in New Zealand.
Telecom rose 4c to 411 ahead of its second quarter result on Friday and an international report that the stock was oversold.
NZOG closed up 4c to 117 as it continued to gain on strong cashflows from the Tui oil field, and Cavalier Carpets ended down 5c to 260 after announcing the completion of its Norman Ellison investment.
Elsewhere, Air New Zealand gained 4c to 182, Fisher & Paykel Appliances rose 1c to 291, Hallenstein Glasson was up 7c to 378, and Trustpower rose 8c to 768.
Volume was strong in Sky TV, down 6c to 516 on $13 million worth of shares; Sky City down a cent to 435; and Infratil, which was flat at 252.
GuocoLeisure, formerly BIL Investments, fell 10c to a year low of 65 from a year high of $1.58 last February. Mr Williamson said a recent result had disappointed investors and there was "not a lot of interest" in the British-registered stock.
Dual-listed stocks did well, including ANZ up 55c to 3070, Westpac up 90c to 3060, Telstra up 13c to 506, and Lion Nathan up 48c to 1123.
On Friday, Wall St ended its best week in almost five years, boosted by improving market sentiment and a $56 billion bid by Microsoft for Yahoo.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished up 0.73 per cent to 12,743.19. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.22 per cent to 1395.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index lifted 0.98 per cent to 2413.36.
- NZPA