New Zealand shares rose yesterday after a late rally on Wall St as investors reacted to snippets of news about moves to protect Europe's banks from the sovereign debt crisis.
The NZX-50 Index rose 7.73, or 0.2 per cent, to 3328.12. Within the index 50 stocks rose, 44 fell.
From being down most of the sessions, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index jumped near the close to be 2.3 per cent up after reports that European finance ministers were looking at ways to co-ordinate shoring up the region's banks.
Investors also picked up on news that French-Belgian bank Dexia's was looking at quarantining bad debts in a "bad bank".
The late rally on Wall St was "in part, a knee-jerk reaction to the fact there was a very small amount of news flow out of Europe," said Angus Gluskie, chief investment officer at White Funds Management in Sydney. "We're seeing a similar thing here - a bit of cautious buying."
Still, he said "we need to see much greater clarity out of Europe before we can see greater gains from here."