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The New Zealand sharemarket has continued its bounce back from a three-year low hit in the middle of last week.
Helping lift the market early today was a 19c gain by Fletcher Building to 665, after the shares had halved in the past year to below 600 by last Wednesday.
A report today quoted Fletcher chief executive Jonathan Ling saying the company was under pressure to join the Australian stock exchange, with expectations such a move would result in the share price rising although that was not certain.
By 10.15am today the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 16.03 points to 3136.94, having dropped as low as 3001 on Wednesday morning.
Other stocks gaining early today included Contact Energy, up 8c to 770, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 4c to 230, Sky City up 4c to 300, Steel & Tube lifting 4c to 269, and NZ Farming Systems Uruguay up 3c to 178.
Rising 2c were Auckland Airport, to 182, Hallenstein Glasson to 270, and Mainfreight to 642.
Among shares to fall early was top stock Telecom, down 1c to 345. Others included Pike River Coal, down 5c to 200, PGG Wrightson down 6c to 240, and Nuplex down 4c to 518.
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Today's continued early strength came after US equities ended last week mixed, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising 0.44 per cent on Friday (local time) to 11,496.57. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was little changed, up just 0.03 per cent at 1260, while the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 1.28 per cent to close at 2282.78.
The Nasdaq was driven down on disappointing earnings from Google and Microsoft, while Citigroup's smaller-than-expected loss pushed up the Dow and helped keep the broader market near the unchanged mark.
For the week, the Dow rose 3.57 per cent, its best week in three months. The S&P 500 rose 1.71 per cent, while the Nasdaq finished the week up 1.95 per cent.
The biggest weekly drop ever in oil prices also gave investors a renewed appetite for equities.
- NZPA
