KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket gained early when it reopened after the Christmas break, despite a drop in Telecom's share price.
Telecom was down 2c to 224, but movements by other leading stocks included Contact Energy up 8c to 710 and Fletcher Building up 5c to 585.
Auckland Airport rose 4c to 164, Sky City was up 3c to 305, Fisher & Paykel Appliances lifted 2c to 125, and The Warehouse gained 2c to 349. Mainfreight was up 5c to 460 but on light volume.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 5.91 points to 2673.96, having gained 6.3 points on Christmas Eve.
Along with Telecom, stocks to fall early today included Port of Tauranga, down 15c to 630, while Ryman Healthcare slipped 4c to 141.
In the US, stocks advanced on light volume on Friday (local time) as energy stocks climbed alongside oil prices while General Motors rose after its financing arm qualified for government funds, helping it stave off potential bankruptcy.
The Federal Reserve opened the door for GMAC to become a bank holding company, letting it tap into government lending programmes.
Still, little could change the fact that 2008 was wrapping up as one of the worst years for stocks and the global economy as a whole. By some measures, US households have lost about US$10 trillion ($17.5 trillion) in wealth this year alone, according to a Merrill Lynch research note.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.6 per cent to end at 8515.55. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.5 per cent to 872.80, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.4 per cent to 1530.24.
For the week, the Dow declined 0.7 per cent while the S&P 500 lost 1.7 per cent and the Nasdaq shed 2.2 per cent.
- NZPA