The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trading, after the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate cut by 50 basis points to 2.5 percent in response to last month's devastating Christchurch earthquake.
The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trading, after the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate cut by 50 basis points to 2.5 percent in response to last month's devastating Christchurch earthquake.
Key stocks made small early gains, with Fletcher Building up 3c to 881, Telecom up 2c to 210, and Contact Energy edging up 1c to 602.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 4.59 points to 3419.02, after falling 6.7 points yesterday.
Mainfreight's stellar rise this week after announcing a deal to buy Netherlands-based transport and logistics firm Wim Bosman Group lost steam early. It fell 10c to 900 early in today's session, having ended last week at 812.
Nuplex fell 6c early to 317, and Abano Healthcare fell 5c to 455, while NZX gained 2c to a year high 202, and Steel&Tube was up 2c to 260.
In the United States, the two-year anniversary of the fastest bull market since the 1950s ended on a down note, with stocks closing slightly lower as the price of oil remained above $US104 a barrel because of the continuing conflict in Libya.
At the market close, the Dow Jones industrial average edged down less than 0.1 percent to 12,213, the Standard&Poor's 500 index was down 0.1 percent to 1320, and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.5 percent to 2752.
Texas Instruments produced a weaker-than-expected target, and analysts saw further weakness for the chip sector.
An index of semiconductor shares was down 2.9 percent and trading below its 50-day moving average in another sign of more losses for the sector.
