KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket rose today as Fletcher Building continued to strengthen following Wednesday's annual profit result.
Soon after the opening Fletcher shares were up 15c, after rising 16c yesterday and 15c on Wednesday. At the close the stock was up 25c at 699, helping the benchmark NZSX-50 index to rise 17.23 points to 3351.13.
"Kiwi equities in the last two or three weeks have actually performed pretty well," said Nigel Scott at ABN Amro Craigs.
He said with interest rates expected to fall there was an allocation toward equities in portfolios and stocks like Fletcher Building were beneficiaries.
Telecom remained out of favour, falling 4c to 324.
"To be honest Telecom hasn't excited the retail environment for a couple of years so where new cash is coming through it is tending to look at some of the other market stories," Mr Scott said.
The Warehouse was put on trading halt with its shares up 11c at 361 after Woolworths said it would seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in its battle to get permission to bid for The Warehouse. The halt was later lifted.
Michael Hill rose 2c to 89 after reporting a rise in profit and the seller of affordable jewellery was relatively upbeat about its prospects even as economies weaken.
SkyTV rose 9c to 510 and brokers said a seller in the stock seemed to have retreated.
Mainfreight was another big mover, rising 18 to 718 and Port of Tauranga was up 9c at 679.
NZ Oil & Gas was up 2c to 149 and Contact was up 7c to 857. Sanford rose 13c to 618. Steel & Tube rose 10c to 325.
Botry-Zen fells 0.2c to 1.4c after a capital raising failed to get shareholder approval.
There were 51 rises and 44 falls on the market and $151m worth of shares traded.
In the US, stocks rose in thin trade as another decline in the price of oil buoyed hopes that consumer spending will recover and financial shares bounced back from a sharp two-day sell-off.
The market had initially fallen after government data showed consumer prices rose at twice the rate expected in July, while weekly jobless data showed further deterioration in the labour market.
"Crude oil's pulling back has taken the pressure out of the inflation picture. This translates to a natural rebound in equities," said Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jefferies & Company in New York.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.72 per cent to 11,615.93, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 0.55 per cent to 1292.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.03 per cent at 2453.67.
- NZPA