KEY POINTS:
After falling every day last week, the New Zealand sharemarket opened strongly today in the wake of a barnstorming late rally by United States equities.
Among the top stocks, Telecom was up 6c early today to 230, Contact Energy gained 21c to 660, and Fletcher Building was up 8c to 550.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 44.92 points, or 1.7 per cent, to 2623.03, having ended last week with a 66.6-point fall on Friday.
US stocks surged toward the end of the Friday session on reports that President-elect Barack Obama has chosen his point person to combat the worst US economic crisis in 80 years.
Reports in the late afternoon that Mr Obama will nominate Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as his Treasury secretary triggered a rapid turn in markets that were wallowing after the week's heavy sell-off in equities.
Along with Treasury secretary Henry Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, Geithner has been among the most visible officials trying to pull the US out of its biggest economic slump since the Great Depression.
"I think it is a brilliant pick, for no other reason than that it creates continuity in the middle of one of the greatest crises to ever face this country," said William O'Donnell, head of US interest rate strategy at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.
Other share price movements in this country included Trustpower up 10c to 715, Pike River Coal up 6c to 93, and Port of Tauranga up 5c to 610.
Stocks rising 4c included Infratil to 167, Mainfreight to 425, Sanford to 525, and Tower to 148. Dual-listed Westpac was up 160 to 2000, with Lion Nathan up 40c to 1040.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 6.5 per cent at 8046.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged 6.3 per cent to 800.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 5.2 per cent to 1384.35.
- NZPA
