KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket followed Wall St upwards today, with Contact Energy leading the way.
Record oil prices and stronger-than-expected quarterly results at several US regional banks gave Wall St a boost . The sentiment flowed through to Australia, where energy and banking stocks had led the market up 1 per cent by mid-afternoon.
Here, the NZSX-50 benchmark index gained 0.39 per cent or 13.7 points to 3516.67 on turnover worth $132 million.
Half the index rise was due to Contact Energy which built on an 11c gain yesterday with another 18c rise to 877 , albeit on moderate volume.
Brokers said the stock was being propelled higher by news Contact was spending $250 million on two gas turbines, combined with high power prices, even though heavy rain over the last day has taken the edge off a looming power crisis.
Other market heavyweights, Telecom and Fletcher Building ran out of puff despite being well traded. Telecom was flat at 268 on volume worth $21m and Fletcher down 2c to 836 on turnover worth $6.2m.
Stocks which stood to gain from a lower currency included a thinly traded Pumpkin Patch up 10c to 180 , and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 4c to 281 on a strong $24 million worth of shares .
Auckland International Airport was flat at 222 but turnover was worth $28 million. Brokers suggested that institutions were snapping up shares as hedge funds departed.
The NZX itself was up 21c to 791 on thin trade, and Vector rose 4c to 199 after reports it was finalising bidders for its Wellington power network.
Retail stocks suffered under recent poor retail data coming out of New Zealand and Australia. Briscoe Group fell 5c to 125, Postie Plus was down 4c to 46 and Hallenstein Glasson dropped 16c to 360.
ABM Amro broker Bryon Burke said retail shares in particular were going to struggle.
"The economic indicators [are] coming through at where the market predicted it would some time ago," he said.
"These inflationary pressures, and retail sales falling, are no surprise and so the share prices are still reacting, although a lot was already priced in before."
Also slipping was Kiwi Income Property Trust, down 5c to 125.
Rises outnumbered falls by 60 to 36.
On Wall St the market was helped overnight by regional banks, including US Bancorp and Regions Financial Corp, which expressed confidence they could weather credit losses from the housing slump.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.49 per cent to end at 12,362.47, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 0.46 per cent to 1334.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.45 per cent to close at 2286.04.
- NZPA
