NZ stocks: Sharemarket tame but eyes still on Tranz Rail

12.00pm

The share market got off to a tame start today but investors would again be keeping a close eye on Tranz Rail stocks, a broker said today.

Forsyth Barr broker David Price said investors would be keeping a keen eye on Tranz Rail, waiting for any revised bid to buy the cash-strapped rail operator from Toll Holdings.

"But if they (Toll) are going to make an announcement I think that will happen after 4pm," Mr Price told NZPA.

At 11.30am Tranz Rail shares were down 3c at 89c.

Toll earlier tabled an offer to buy Tranz Rail at 75c a share, and is now on the brink of either improving its bid or abandoning it.

Toll has been forced to reconsider its position on Tranz Rail following the Government's announcement last week of a $226 million package to buy the rail operator.

Today, the benchmark NZSX-50 gross index was up 8.60 points at 2121.89 while the NZSX 40 capital index was up 5.59 points at 2081.38.

At 11.30am there had been $26.5 million of stocks traded on turnover of 12.6 million. So far, there were 41 rises and 23 falls in the 96 stocks traded.

"There's not a lot going on -- it's pretty quiet so far," Mr Price told NZPA.

Market leader Telecom was up 2c to 512, having traded $7 million on volume of 1.4 million.

Among the stocks that had risen today were Owens up 5c to 97, Sky City up 5c to 875, Contact Energy up 2c to 481, Mainfreight up 3c to 133, NZX up 3c to 405, The Warehouse up 12c to 465, and AMP up 28c to 588.

Mr Price said the move in AMP was a lag effect from trading on the Australian market yesterday, after NZX had closed at 4pm yesterday.

Among the stocks to fall so far today were Horizon down 10c to 385, Air New Zealand down 1c to 52, INL down 3c to 430, Michael Hill down 2c to 448, Pacific Retail down 3c to 215, and Westpac down 7c to 1790.

- NZPA