Sharemarket starts up slightly

The New Zealand sharemarket started its pre-holiday trading session in mildly positive territory and little change among the leading stocks.

After a strong gain yesterday, the benchmark NZX-50 index was up just 1.03 points to 3210.59 in the first 15 minutes.

Telecom and Fletcher Building were unchanged at $2.50 and $7.90 respectively, while Contact Energy shed 1c to $6.07.

ANZ gained 19c to $27.49 but fellow dual-listed bank Westpac was untraded early on this side of the Tasman after those banks and BNZ and ASB announced a settlement with the IRD late last night to pay $2.2 billion in back taxes to end their litigation over foreign structured finance transactions.

Westpac owed the most but said the $760 million it will now pay the IRD brings back $190m to its books, as all the banks are settling at a 20 per cent discount to their total liabilities.

ANZ National will pay $413.7m in primary tax and interest - but said $105.8m of that was for deals on which ANZ held an indemnity from National's former British parent bank Lloyds.

Other stocks to gain in early trading included Auckland Airport up 2c to $2.01, PGG Wrightson up 1c to 59c following successful completion of its rights issue, Sky City up 4c to $3.38 and Vector 3c to $2.03.

Among the falling stocks were NZ Refining down 13c to $3.77, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare 1c to $3.39, SkyTV 3c to $4.95 and GPG 1c to 83c.

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On Wall Street, technology shares rose after solid earnings from Micron Technology and Red Hat, but an unexpected drop in new home sales kept a lid on the broader market's gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average inched up 1.51 points, or 0.01 per cent, at 10,466.44. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 2.57 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 1120.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 16.97 points, or 0.75 per cent, to 2269.64.

- NZPA