KEY POINTS:
Contact Energy continued its rising trend of the past fortnight, helping the New Zealand sharemarket to start the week with an early gain.
By 10.25am today the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 16.07 points to 3724.19, following a 37.5 point gain on Friday.
Third-ranked stock Contact Energy was up 9c early to 785, on top of a 14c gain on Friday as power prices rose during the hot, dry summer. On January 22 the stock had dropped as low as 691.
Among other shares rising early in this country today, top stock Telecom was up 3c to 410, having jumped 9c on Friday with brokers assessing it had been over sold and cheap compared with its international peers.
Air New Zealand gained 5c early to 183, Fletcher Building rose 2c to 1018, Fisher & Paykel Appliances was up 5c to 295, Hellaby Holdings rose 5c to 210, Hallenstein Glasson was up 3c to 374, Infratil gained 3c to 255, and Rakon added 7c to 350.
On the other side of the ledger, The Warehouse shed 4c early to 580 on small volume, after jumping 19c on Friday on optimism the case about whether Foodstuffs or Woolworths will be able to launch takeover bids will be resolved quickly.
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In the US on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average finished up 0.73 per cent to 12,743.19. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.22 per cent to 1395.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index lifted 0.98 per cent to 2413.36.
- NZPA