NZ stocks: Market continues positive trend through morning trading

12.00pm

The sharemarket followed a positive line through the morning on the back of solid performances on the United States' markets on Friday, a broker said.

At 11.30am, the benchmark NZSX50 was up 18.25 points, or 0.87 per cent, to 2128.61, while the NZX40 capital index was up 16.64 points, or 0.81 per cent, to 2068.77.

The rise came after a 1.5 per cent surge on the Dow Jones industrial average in overnight trading on Friday, taking it up 137.33 points to 9188.15.

The broad Standard & Poor's 500 gained 11.59 points, or 1.18 per cent, at 993.32. The tech-laced Nasdaq Composite was up 10.49 points, or 0.62 per cent, at 1708.51.

On NZX this morning, trading was light, with $16.4 million worth of shares traded on volume of 5.6 1 million by 11.30am.

Among the 100 stocks traded so far were 36 rises and 21 falls.

Forsyth Barr broker David Price said the market was responding to the solid performance of US market's on Friday, albeit on low volume.

"Obviously they had a strong night on Friday and we've just followed that along," Mr Price said.

He thought trading on NZX would continue its positive trend through the day, but "it'll be on low volume and pretty quiet".

There was $4.9 million worth of Telecom traded on volume of 975,202, the telco's share price up 8c at 513.

Telstra was up 3c at 532, having so far today traded $2.7 million on volume of 507,230.

Sky City was up 19c to 885, which was gaining some lost ground through the recent strengthening of the New Zealand dollar, Mr Price said.

In other sharemarket news, commercial property investor Urbus Properties listed on NZX's main board at 95c, but by 11.30am was trading at 92c.

Shares on the rise today included: Air New Zealand up 1c to 50, AMP up 2c to 572, Auckland International Airport up 4c to 580, Contact Energy up 7c to 470, Nuplex up 6c to 370, Port of Tauranga up 1c to 406, The Warehouse up 8c to 487, and Westpac up 10c to 1710.

On the slide were: Broadway down 1c to 55, DB Breweries down 5c to 690, Fisher & Paykel Appliances down 8c to 1260, F&P Healthcare down 9c to 1131, NZX down 8c to 472, Port of Lyttelton down 2c to 173, Pyne Gould Guinness down 2c to 118, and Vertex down 4c to 160.

- NZPA