NZ Shares: Market edges up after OCR cut

The New Zealand sharemarket edged ahead in early trading after the Reserve Bank cut official interest rates by half a percentage point to 3 per cent.

Trading also followed small gains in United States stocks after JP Morgan Chase's chief executive said his bank was profitable in January and February, echoing comments by Citigroup's chief executive a day earlier.

But the US gains were slim as a 7 per cent drop in oil prices pushed energy shares like Exxon Mobil Corp lower and limited a broad-market advance.

In this country the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 2.54 points to 2500.04 around 10.15am, following a 34.8-point gain yesterday when investors took their lead from overseas markets.

Among leading stocks in this country Telecom was unchanged early at $2.38, Contact Energy slipped 1c to $5.55, and Fletcher Building gained 1c to $5.27.

Sky TV rose 5c early to $3.85, Rakon was up 3c to 97, and Fisher & Paykel Appliances gained 2c to 56, while dual-listed Westpac was up 56c to $21.26.

Among stocks falling early Hallenstein Glasson lost 4c to $1.95, F&P Healthcare was down 3c to $3.43, and Sky City was down 3c to $2.63.

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The Dow Jones industrial average ended unofficially up 0.1 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 0.2 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1 per cent.

- NZPA