Sharemarket opens week with a lift

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week with a lift, after positive economic data buoyed international markets overnight Friday.

By 10.15am today the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 9.76 points to 3311.42, having ended last week with a 14.2-point gain on Friday.

Among leading shares, Contact Energy was up 5c to $6.27, Telecom lifted 1c to $2.20 and Fletcher Building also gained 1c, to $8.45.

Auckland Airport was up 1c to $2.02, after reporting a 3.9 per cent rise in international passenger volumes last month compared to a year earlier. Nuplex lifted 3c to $3.39, Xero gained 3c to $1.60, and NZX picked up 2c to $1.82.

Retailer Kirkcaldie & Stains was up 5c to $2.90, after reporting on Friday that first half net profit rose 50.4 per cent to $725,000, despite a 4.2 per cent fall in revenues to $21.96 million.

Trustpower fell 5c to $7.35, and fishing company Sanford was down 3c to $4.42.

Movements in dual-listed shares included a 90c increase by ANZ to $33.00, while Telstra dipped 4c to $4.12.

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In the United States, stocks rose to a 19-month high on Friday as Merck eased concerns about the impact of healthcare reform, saying its costs will be relatively low, while energy shares lifted the broad market after oil rose 1.7 per cent to above US$85 a barrel on positive economic data.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.6 per cent to 11,204.28, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.7 per cent to 1217.28, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.4 per cent to 2530.15.

For the week, the S&P 500 was up 2.1 per cent, the Dow gained 1.7 per cent and the Nasdaq rose 2 per cent. It was the eighth straight week of gains for the Dow and Nasdaq, while the S&P has gained in seven of the past eight weeks.

- NZPA