Market rises after positive lead from America

File photo / NZ Herald

The New Zealand sharemarket rose yesterday after receiving a positive lead from the United States on Friday (US time), while weaker-than-expected inflation figures caused the New Zealand dollar to fall.

The NZX-50 index rose 12.486 points, or 0.362 per cent, to 3465.171. Turnover was worth $72.9 million. There were 33 rises and 43 falls among the 112 stocks traded.

Asian markets were mixed as investors continued to wait on United States companies to report first-quarter results.

An insight into how the New Zealand economy was travelling was seen in Australia when Woolworths said its New Zealand sales rose 3 per cent in the 13 weeks to April 3.

The owner of Countdown supermarkets said the New Zealand economy remained challenging and the Christchurch earthquake in February had had an adverse impact on its business.

Telecom rose 8.5c to $2.06 on a day when it outlined a plan to trim its senior executive team and said its binding bid to be a partner for the bulk of the Government's ultra-fast broadband initiative had been made.

OceanaGold rose 7c to $3.84, Scott Technology rose 5c to $1.40 and Sanford rose 9c to $5.60.

Rakon rose 1c to $1.20. Air NZ rose 1c to $1.12 and Auckland Airport rose 3.5c to $2.22.

Contact Energy rose 2c to $5.82.

Fletcher Building eased 4c to $9.14. NZ Refining Company was down 10c to $4.60, Sky TV fell 3c to $5.75 and Xero fell 5c to $2.48.

In the United States, encouraging economic indicators sent stocks higher on Friday but the market's recent struggles are expected to continue into this week when more than a fifth of Standard & Poor's 500 Index companies report results.

Investors favoured defensive stocks on Friday, which tend to do better in times of waning growth.

Disappointing results from Google and Infosys weighed on technology shares and financial shares were pressured by Bank of America's results.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.5 per cent to 12,341.83, the S&P 500 Index rose 0.4 per cent to 1319.68, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.2 per cent to 2764.65.

For the week, the Dow fell 0.3 per cent while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each lost 0.6 per cent.

- NZPA