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The New Zealand sharemarket was flat as trading started for November, after last month's steep decline.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index did lift in the last three trading days of October, gaining 58 points on Friday, and around 10.15am today had crept up another 1.41 points to 2822.28.
Telecom was up 2c to 237, with Fletcher Building up 3c to 583, but among the leaders Contact Energy was down 5c to 720.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances lifted 5c to 140, while F&P Healthcare was up 2c to 299. Infratil was up 2c to 195, Nuplex added 3c to 530, and Rakon also gained 3c to 191.
Early losers included Auckland Airport, down 4c to 179, Methven down 3c to 145, Ryman Healthcare down 4c to 152, and Sky TV down 7c to 382.
In the United States, stocks ended one of their worst months on record, but signs of further thawing in credit markets lifting battered shares on Friday.
Hammered by worries over the extent of the damage the credit crunch has inflicted on the global economy, the Dow Jones industrial average logged its biggest monthly decline in a decade, while the S&P 500 had its worst month since the October 1987 market crash.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 1.6 per cent to 9325.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 1.5 per cent to 968.75. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 1.3 per cent to 1720.95.
- NZPA