NZ stocks: Market posts modest gains

The New Zealand sharemarket posted modest gains but brokers said it was a mixed performance on the first day of a new trading week.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 10.641 points, or 0.382 per cent, at 2794.914. Turnover was worth $68 million. About $20m of that was traded in Telecom and Fletcher Building.

There were 29 rises and 34 falls among the 107 stocks traded.

Fletcher Building rose 9c to 662 in a continued climb back after hitting its lowest level in three weeks - 636 - last Wednesday.

Market leader Telecom was unchanged at 261, after an 8c fall on Friday after having reached a six-week high of 270 on Thursday.

The industry it operates in will be in the spotlight at the 10th annual Telecommunications and ICT Summit in Auckland tomorrow.

Stephen Wright at ASB Securities said there was reasonable demand for leading shares from Australian buyers, possibly because the NZ dollar has been low against the Australian dollar.

"There is a bit more Australian buying in some of these stocks, Fletcher Building in particular," he said.

Fletcher Building was recovering recent weakness and investors were looking at it with a recovering property market in mind.

But investors are also waiting for the Federal Reserve to comment this week and also for current account and gross domestic product data in New Zealand at the end of the week.

Among shares gaining ground were Infratil, up 5c to 181, and NZ Refining, up 18c to 700. Air NZ rose 2c to 92 and TrustPower rose 7c to 767.

Sanford rose 5c to 555 and Freightways rose 3c to 289.

NZ Farming Systems Uruguay eased 3c to 161, Tourism Holdings eased 3c to 46 and Nuplex eased 5c to 161. Contact was unchanged at 583 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare recovered early weakness to end unchanged at 288.

Xero rose 3c to 132 and Wellington Drive Technology eased 0.5c to 14.

In the United States, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose on Friday (local time) as positive broker comments on Microsoft boosted technology shares, but the major averages lost ground for the week for the first time in five weeks.

Indexes eased after a sharp three-month rally, as investors increasingly questioned if stocks were due for a correction. Worries that the economic recovery could be tepid dented optimism that has driven the S&P 500 up as much as 40 per cent from March's 12-year low.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.2 per cent to 8539.73, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 0.3 per cent to 921.23, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.1 per cent to 1827.47.

After four weeks of gains, the Dow fell 3 per cent, the S&P lost 2.6 per cent, and the Nasdaq dropped 1.7 per cent for the week.

- NZPA