Contact rises early in flat market

File photo / Paul Estcourt

Contact Energy was among the shares to gain early when the New Zealand sharemarket opened for the week, but remained below its 4-1/2-month intraday high reached on Friday.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 2.54 points to 3307.54, a few points below the six-month intraday high reached on Friday, which ended with a 14.9-point gain.

Today, Contact Energy rose 5c early to $5.90, having been as high as $5.95 on Friday. Sky City rose 3c to $3.05, on top of its 12c lift on Friday which came after the casino operator said first quarter revenue was 3.3 per cent up on a year ago and net profit was up 3.7 per cent.

Port of Tauranga lifted 4c early to $7.49, Hellaby Holdings lost 3c to $2.00, Vector fell 3c to $2.40, Fletcher Building was down 2c to $8.19, and Telecom unchanged on $2.05.

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In the United States, stocks ended on a flat note on Friday, wrapping up another strong month driven by expectations the Federal Reserve will flood the economy with cash this week.

Investors kept trading to a minimum this week in anticipation of the Fed's quantitative easing announcement. Activity the last several weeks has been heavily influenced by hopes for a large round of asset buying.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.04 per cent to 11,118.49, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 0.04 per cent to 1183.26, and the Nasdaq Composite Index edged up just 0.04 point to 2507.41.

For the week, the Dow dipped 0.1 per cent, while the S&P 500 edged up only 0.02 per cent and the Nasdaq added 1.1 per cent.

- NZPA