KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand share market posted modest gains today in contrast to a weak Australian market.
Brokers cautioned against reading too much into the day's trading as volume was extremely light.
Prices reflected flows and orders were mostly coming from retail, rather than institutional, investors.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 10.858 points, or 0.394 per cent, at 2768.272.
"It's very light volume," said James Smalley at Hamilton, Hindin Greene.
As the New Zealand market closed the Australian market was down around 1.7 per cent. United States stocks slid on Friday after a labour market report showing the worst annual job losses since World War 2 signalled the recession is far from over.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.64 per cent, the tech-laden Nasdaq was down 2.81 per cent and Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2.13 per cent.
Mr Smalley said there was a lack of selling by institutions in New Zealand and enough interest from retail clients attracted to high yields to lift some stocks.
Telecom rose 6c to 247. The company announced the closure of its online shopping venture Ferrit today but the business was seen as too small to influence the big picture.
Fletcher Building eased 3c to 595 and Contact eased 12c to 733. TrustPower eased 2c to 730 and The Warehouse eased 8c to 355.
Most of the rest of the market managed to post gains with Michael Hill posting the biggest percentage gain, rising 3.7 per cent to 56, on light volume.
Goodman Fielder rose 8c to 172 and was queried by the ASX about recent gains in its share price.
Mainfreight rose 9c to 480 and NZOG was unchanged at 124. SkyTV was unchanged at 390 after earlier rising, and Tower rose 4c to 154. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 1c to 314.
- NZPA
