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New Zealand's sharemarket was bolstered by a rise in Telecom, a lower dollar and increases in the Australian banking sector.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index rose 1 per cent or 36.66 points to 3637.83 on mild volume worth $92 million. Rises outnumbered falls by 60 to 44.
The sharemarket started off slightly lower today in response to falls in US stocks over the weekend, after oil prices hit another record and the world's largest insurer AIG reported a massive loss.
But the bourse turned around after the Australian market opened, "the catalyst" being news that Westpac was in takeover talks with St George Bank, ASB Securities broker Stephen Wright said.
Westpac rose 47c to 3200, ANZ was up $1.20 to 2980 and AMP jumped 50c to 960.
Here, another stock affected by corporate activity in Australia, Contact Energy, rose 7c to 909 on solid volume. Today BG Group, the suitor for Contact's majority owner Origin, received an exemption from having to make any immediate takeover offer for Contact.
But BG said it was required to make a cash bid for Contact within one month of its offer for Origin Energy becoming unconditional.
Top stock Telecom jumped 11c to 394, underpinned by news that it had secured a bigger standby credit facility of $800m.
But Fletcher Building was dragged lower by gloomy residential housing sales in April, falling 11c to 818.
Stocks helped along by the lower dollar included Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 5c to 263, F&P Appliances up 2c to 263, GPG up 6c to 184, and NZ Farming Systems up 10c to 175.
British-based GPG was two weeks ahead of a dividend payment and NZ Farming Systems Uruguay had been doing well since announcing last month that it expected to beat its annual profit forecast due to higher milk prices, Mr Wright said.
Against the poor economic outlook, economic barometer Freightways rose 7c to 338 and Mainfreight rose a cent to 671, as the NZ Super Fund disclosed that it had lifted its stake from 5 to 6 per cent.
Retailer The Warehouse slid 15c to 520 on a couple of trades and a 4.3 per cent slide in Q3 sales reported on Friday.
Other moves included oil-sensitive Air NZ, down 3c and hovering just a cent above its year low at 114; Rakon up 10c to 323; Auckland Airport up 3c to 223; Sky TV up 5c to 455 and Tower down 4c to 211.
Across the Tasman, Australian stocks were up 0.7 per cent in mid-afternoon trading on the back of the Westpac-St George news.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.94 per cent to 12,745.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 0.67 per cent to end at 1388.28, while the Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.23 per cent to 2445.52.
- NZPA
