NZ Shares: Market up early

Small rises in leading shares helped the New Zealand sharemarket to a small early gain.

Telecom lifted 2c early to $2.48, after yesterday falling 14c of which 6c was due to the stock going ex-dividend, Fletcher Building gained 3c to $6.30, and Contact Energy was up 6c to $5.90.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 3c early to $3.10, but then dropped 8c to $2.99, as the company announced its operating profit for the year to the end of March rose 76 per cent to $102.4 million.

That was a result of strong growth in respiratory and acute care product group, new product introductions in the obstructive sleep apnea range and favourable exchange rate movements, the company reported shortly after the market opened.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 11.28 points to 2751.48, having closed down 20.35 points yesterday as Asian markets wobbled after North Korea said it had conducted a nuclear test.

Other early rises today included NZX up 50c to $9.00, Ebos Group up 5c to $4.90, and Ryman Healthcare up 2c to $1.63.

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Markets in the United States and Britain were closed overnight, but European shares rose, with some analysts choosing to interpret a leading German economic survey positively.

Weaker-than-expected readings for Germany's Ifo business climate index of the German business sector suggested that the nation's firms continue to struggle.

But the expectations index came in at 85.9, higher than forecasts for 85.5.

"The thing we can highlight today was the expectations from the Ifo index were up for the fifth consecutive month, and this shows the trend of improving economic sentiment is intact," said Tammo Greetfeld, equity strategist at Unicredit Group in Munich.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares rose 0.2 per cent to 857.71 points, after two days of losses.

- NZPA