NZ shares start week strongly

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week strongly, with leading stocks recovering some of the ground lost on Friday.

Fletcher Building was up 7c early to $8.24, Contact Energy gained 4c to $5.95 and Telecom lifted 3c to $2.60. On Friday Fletcher lost 13c, Contact fell 7c and Telecom was down 2c.

Around 10.15am, the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 17.19 points to 3180.44, having closed down 5.7 points on Friday when it was thought the market was suffering from the strength of the NZ dollar. Overnight Friday the kiwi eased, with falls against the greenback and Australian dollar, among others.

Other stocks rising early today included Freightways, up 5c to $3.15, Ebos Group up 5c to $5.95, Port of Tauranga up 5c to $6.85, Ryman Holdings up 2c to $1.88, and NZ Oil & Gas up 2c to $1.78. Dual-listed Westpac gained 39c to $32.20, with AMP up 20c to $8.35.

Stocks falling early included Air New Zealand, down 2c to $1.31, and Auckland Airport down 1c to $1.93.

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In the United States, stocks climbed on Friday as investors anticipated positive news from this week's key earnings reports and bullish broker comments boosted tech shares.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 0.8 per cent at 9864.94, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.6 per cent to 1071.49, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.7 per cent to 2139.28.

Weekly gains snapped a two-week losing streak and were the best since July. The five-day rally pushed the Dow Jones up 4 per cent for the week, while the S&P 500 advanced 4.5 per cent and the Nasdaq gained 4.5 per cent.

- NZPA