The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trading as a range of shares edged ahead.Market heavyweight Telecom gained 2c early to 220, adding to its 3c gain yesterday, but another leading stock, Fletcher Building, fell 3c to 840 having lost 9c yes
The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trading as a range of shares edged ahead.
Market heavyweight Telecom gained 2c early to 220, adding to its 3c gain yesterday, but another leading stock, Fletcher Building, fell 3c to 840 having lost 9c yesterday after announcing that 120 jobs would go in its Australian insulation business due to a change in a government scheme.
Port of Tauranga gained 5c early to 695, but only on low volume, while Nuplex gained 2c to 328, Ryman Healthcare lifted 2c to 213, Freightways was up 2c to 321, and Auckland Airport was up 2c to 201.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 6.49 points to 3293.96, having yesterday fallen 17.5 points on a day of weak markets in Asia.
Retailer Kirkcaldie&Stains was untraded early on 285, after reporting first half net profit up 50.4 percent to $725,000, despite a 4.2 percent fall in revenues to $21.96 million. Hallenstein Glasson lost 3c to 355.
In the United States, stocks staged a late-day comeback as strong quarterly profits from consumer bellwethers such as Starbucks Corp outweighed worries about Greece's shaky finances.
First-quarter earnings are on track to set a record for the percentage of companies beating estimates.
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 0.1 percent to 11,134.29, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 1208.67, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.6 percent to 2519.07.
