NZ Shares: Local market ahead early

A 1.5 per cent rise in top stock Telecom helped pull the New Zealand sharemarket ahead early, following moderate gains in United States equities.

US stocks rose as a brokerage's upbeat view on US banks drove a run-up in financials, while soaring prices of oil and other commodities lifted natural resource companies on bets the economic slump is waning.

Dual-listed banking shares lifted early in this country with ANZ up 30c to $21.00 and Westpac up 10c to $24.10.

The rise in commodity prices also looked to be having an impact with NZ Oil & Gas lifting 5c to $1.60, while Pike River Coal gained 2c to $1.17.

Among leading stocks, Telecom was up 4c early to $2.60, Contact Energy slipped 1c to $5.94, and Fletcher Building also eased down 1c, to $6.98.

Fletcher shares have climbed for the past four trading days, lifting from a close of $6.30 on Thursday last week.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 13.99 points to 2829.7, having lost 24.9 points yesterday.

Stocks rising early included Rakon up 5c to $1.55, Sanford up 5c to $5.75, and Mainfreight up 2c to $4.45.

Shares falling early included NZ Refining Co, down 11c to $7.04 on low volume, and Fisher & Paykel Appliances down 2.5c to 69.

NZX advised a trading halt was placed on securities of Australian mining giant Rio Tinto at the company's request. Rio earlier said it was looking at new ways to deal with its debt burden, in response to reports its planned deal with China's Chinalco had collapsed.

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In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.9 per cent to 8750.24, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 1.2 per cent to 942.46, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.3 per cent to 1850.02.

- NZPA