NZ sharemarket gains early

After hitting a 10-month low yesterday, the New Zealand sharemarket rose in early trading today with resins and specialty chemicals supplier Nuplex Industries gaining 4.7 per cent.

The partial recovery in this country came after stocks in the United States mostly rose in volatile trading, closing at or near session highs after a wobbly session.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 10.4 points to 2999.38, after ending yesterday down 41.2 points.

After falling to a six-month low of $2.70 during trading yesterday, and closing at $2.77, Nuplex shares put on a 13c burst in early trading to be at $2.90 in the first few minutes after the market opened.

Fletcher Building shares, which lost 14c yesterday, gained 11c early to $8.15 but shortly afterwards the lift in share price was down to just 1c, taking the price to $8.05.

Sky City was up 3c early to $2.90, Air New Zealand lifted 3c to $1.17, NZX gained 4c to $1.54, Contact Energy was up 2c to $5.80, Tower lifted 2c to $1.84, and Steel & Tube was up 2c to $2.40.

Telecom was up 1c early to $1.82, after striking a new record low yesterday.

Mainfreight recorded the main early share price decline, down 5c to $6.10 on low volume.

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In the US, the gain in stocks was led by materials and financial shares, with investors shying away from big-cap technology shares on concerns about their European exposure.

Overnight, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the US economy seemed to have enough momentum to avoid a "double-dip" recession, giving support to domestic-oriented companies.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 1.3 per cent to 9939.98, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 1.1 per cent to 1062.00, but the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.2 per cent to 2170.57.

- NZPA