NZ sharemarket steady in early business

By NZPA

Wednesday 31st January 2007

The sharemarket was flat in featureless, early trading today.

The NZSX-50 index was up 3.48 points at 4131.52 at 10.20am.

Market leader Telecom was unchanged after it fell 7c to $5.07 yesterday. New Zealand's largest listed company reports its first half result on Friday with attention focused on news of the sale of its directories business.

Contact Energy was off 3c to $8.37 and Fletcher Building was down 5c to $11.15.

In-play retailer The Warehouse recovered 3c to $7.28 after it eased 5c yesterday.

Veda Advantage, which surged 58c yesterday on news of an $A814 million ($NZ914 million) takeover proposal, rose 3c to a five-year high of $3.93 today.

A consortium of Pacific Equity Partners and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity has made an indicative and non-binding proposal to buy all of Veda, formerly Baycorp Advantage, at $A3.61 ($NZ4.09) per share.

Abano Healthcare, which jumped 16c, or 6%, to $2.76 yesterday after it upgraded its annual forecast by up to 60%, rose another 9c to $2.85 today.

Australian listed stocks were strong after the market there surged yesterday. Westpac was up 16c to $27.71, Lion Nathan 5c to $9.15 and AMP 5c to $11.80.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances was up 5c to $3.69.

On Wall Street, US stocks closed higher as a 5.5% jump in oil prices triggered a rally in energy shares, but caution before a Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision on Wednesday capped gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 32.53 points, or 0.26%, to end unofficially at 12,523.31, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7.55 points to close unofficially at 2448.64.

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