NZ Shares: Local market opens firmer

The New Zealand sharemarket edged slightly higher in early trading today, after Wall Street ended its session on a firm note.

The benchmark NZX-50 index rose 2.11 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 2745.09 in the first 10 minutes this morning.

While Telecom was unchanged at $2.67, Contact Energy gained 2c to $5.67 and the market's other heavyweight stock, Fletcher Building, eased 1c to $6.46 after falling 7c on Monday amid weakness in Australasian building stocks.

Other stocks to rise early on included Tower 2c to $1.72, Rakon 5c to $1.50, PGG Wrightson 2c to $1.10, Air New Zealand 1c to 88 and Auckland Airport 1c to $1.52.

Fisher & Paykel Appliances firmed 1c to 67, while the Healthcare stock was unchanged at $2.90.

Steel and Tube lost 5c to $2.75, NZX was also down 5c to $7.25 and Pumpkin Patch shed 4c to $1.46.

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On Wall Street, Reuters reported that the Dow industrials rose and the S&P 500 rebounded in late trading as investors' concerns about the strength of an economic recovery triggered a move into defensive stocks.

But the technology-heavy Nasdaq slipped as investors rotated out of the tech sector, which is viewed as more reliant on the economic cycle.

A series of reports showing the US economy is in less dire straits than it was at the start of the year drove stocks sharply higher in the spring, but lately investors have been looking for consistent evidence of a sustained recovery, Reuters reported.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 44.13 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 8324.87. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 2.30 points, or 0.26 per cent, to 898.72. But the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 9.12 points, or 0.51 per cent, to 1787.40.

- NZPA