Telecom maintains momentum to lift NZ sharemarket

By NZPA

Tuesday 3rd April 2007

Telecom continued to power ahead today following yesterday's 2% rise, helping to nudge the sharemarket into the positive.

The NZSX-50 Index was up 3.83 points to a six-week high of 4141.27 at 10.10am.

Telecom was up 5c to $4.88, building on yesterday's 10c gain. The stock is rising on hopes of a decent return to shareholders following last week's sale of its Yellow Pages division for $2.2 billion.

Many of the other blue chips were down. Contact was off 2c to $9.21, Air NZ 5c to $2.33, The Warehouse 3c to $6.72, Goodman Fielder 5c to $2.33 and Pumpkin Patch 3c to $4.32.

On the other side, Michael Hill was up 10c to $9.30, Infratil 7c to $5.77, NZ Refining 5c to $6.35.

Sky City lost 3c of yesterday's gain to be on $4.73.

On Wall Street, US stocks ended slightly higher as a new round of takeovers led by a $US29 billion ($NZ40.7 billion) buyout bid for First Data Corp fuelled optimism about stock valuations, countering worries about the economy and turmoil in the housing market.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 27.95 points at 12,382.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 3.69 points, at 1424.55 and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.62 point at 2422.26.

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