Sharemarket begins 2011 with a bit of a lift

File photo / NZH

New Zealand's main sharemarket index lifted on the first day of trading for 2011, spiking over 30 points or nearly 1 per cent at mid-afternoon, and finished confidently, up 27.59 points at the end of the day.

The benchmark NZX-50 index finished at 3336.62, a slight improvement on its last day of trading on New Year's Eve, when a fall of 25 points left the index with a overall gain for the year of about 2.7 per cent.

There were 42 rises and 32 falls among the 103 stocks traded across the whole market. The 13.8m shares traded were valued at $27.1m.

One of the best performers in today's thin trade was Fletcher Building, which jumped 1.7 per cent, by 13c to 779, as over a million shares changed hands, while Fisher & Paykel Health climbed 2.57 per cent, by 8c to 319, on much smaller parcels of shares.

Casino operator Sky City rose 4c in early trade and kept rising to finish the day up 6c at 330, Auckland Airport lifted 5c to 223, and cornerstone stock Telecom added 1c to 218 as 2.5m of its shares were sold.

Several banks showed marked fall, with ANZ Bank Group down 2.26 per cent, by 70c to 3030, and Westpac down 1.69 per cent by 50c to 2900.

Fewer than 300,000 Warehouse shares were sold, but the price dropped 2.29 per cent by 8c to 342.

In the United States, falls in oil and metals prices dragged down energy and materials shares, while concern about lower supermarket profits hit consumer stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 20 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 11,691. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dipped 1.67 points, or 0.13 per cent, to 1270. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 10 points, or 0.38 per cent, to 2681.

Newmont Mining Corp. fell 3.3 per cent as gold fell the most in six months and shares of grocer Supervalu Inc fell nearly 7 per cent after Morgan Stanley told investors to slash holdings in the stock. Safeway Inc and Whole Foods Market also slid.

Across the Tasman, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 per cent to 4723.30 as lower commodities prices hit resource-related shares.

- NZPA