KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket firmed in early trading today after Wall Street notched up another strong performance.
The Warehouse was down 5c to 590 after the retailer announced an annual net profit after tax of $115.5 million, compared to $29.3m last year.
But sales grew below the inflation rate as did the net profit of $97.9m once the one-off sale of its Australian opertion was stripped out.
The NZSX-50 index was up 7.4 points to 4149 at 10.15am on modest turnover of $23m.
Top stock Telecom made up the 3c it fell yesterday to 440.
No 2 Fletcher Building built on yesterday's 22c gain with a 5c rise to 1190 while No 3 stock Contact Energy fell a cent to 898.
Exchange operator NZX was up 5c to 965 while Freightways was up 4c to 384.
Among the smaller stocks, Colonial Motors was up 9c to 360.
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In the US, stocks closed higher after a Wall Street analyst said brokerage shares were undervalued and McDonald's Corp raised its annual dividend by 50 per cent.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 133.23 points, or 1.00 per cent, to 13,424.88, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 12.32 points, or 0.84 per cent, to 1483.88 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 8.99 points to 2601.06.
- NZPA