Sharemarket up early, NZ Refining plunges

Shares in NZ Refining have fallen a further 50c in early trading, after the company yesterday said it would not be paying an interim dividend and warned it expected to make a loss in the second half.

Today's early 7.7 per cent decline to $6.00 in NZ Refining's stocks on the New Zealand sharemarket followed a 40c fall yesterday.

Goodman Property Trust was down 3c early to $1.00 after the Goodman Group reported shortly before the market opened that it was reducing its interest in the trust from 28 per cent to 17 per cent, realising A$72 million ($89.3m) from the partial sale.

Shares in casino operator Sky City were unchanged on $3.30 after the company reported a 13 per cent rise in normalised full year net profit to $115.3m.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 21.96 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 3093.54. Yesterday it closed down 14.5 points, which was seen as a resilient performance after sharp falls by global stocks.

Among companies rising early were Fletcher Building, up 15c to $7.95, Nuplex up 11c to $2.26, Telecom up 5c to $2.74, Sky TV up 4c to $4.63, The Warehouse up 4c to $4.10, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 3c to $3.30, and F&P Appliances up 3c to 82.

Sanford was down 7c early on low volume to $5.12, while Trustpower slipped 5c to $7.60.

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In the United States stocks rose, rebounding after sharp losses in the previous session, as better-than-expected results from big retailers encouraged investors to get back into the market.

Results at consumer giants Home Depot Inc, Target Corp and upscale department store operator Saks Inc were helped by cost-cutting as revenue growth remained slack.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.9 per cent at 9217.94, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1 per cent at 989.67, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.3 per cent at 1955.92.

- NZPA