NZ sharemarket posts solid gains

The New Zealand sharemarket posted solid gains today helped by a resurgent Telecom and some positive statements about earnings from companies.

The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 32.819 points, or 0.954 percent, at 3472.803. Turnover was worth $127.83 million. There were 46 rises and 29 falls among the 112 stocks traded.

The market had ended down 25.2 points yesterday after a threat by Standard&Poor's to cut its AAA rating of US government debt and renewed worries about Europe's debt crisis spurred a sell-off in major world stock markets.

Telecom rose 10c, or 4.87 percent, to 215.5, a six-week high, after saying the company's joint venture with Vodafone has been chosen for the Government's $285 million Rural Broadband Initiative. Volume was large but brokers said some of reflected transactions yesterday.

"The momentum is the interesting thing. I guess the market is taking an inference from this that they are more likely to be involved in ultrafast broadband," James Lee, head of institutional equities at First NZ Capital said.

Most of the leading shares were having a better day, he said.

Sanford was unchanged at 565, even though the fishing company today signalling a higher interim profit, and DNZ Property rose 3c to 129 after releasing a better than forecast distributable profit.

SkyCity rose 3c to 342 on the day the Securities Commission warned against an unsolicited offer from a limited partnership associated with Bernard Whimp at 230 a share.

Fletcher Building rose 3c to 908, while Contact Energy rose a cent to 581 on a day it reported lower electricity customer numbers in March.

SkyTV rose 4c to 579, Freightways rose 3c to 333 and Kiwi Income Property Trust rose 0.5c to 219.

Hallenstein Glasson rose 2c to 394 and The Warehouse rose 2c to 355.

Pyne Gould Corp eased a cent to 29 and Pumpkin Patch eased a cent to 128.

Ebos eased 7c to 743.

In the United States, encouraging results from health care and materials companies lifted stocks, but weak earnings from Goldman Sachs limited gains in a market sceptical of the growth outlook.

Investors were reluctant to make big bets as the market readied for a spate of high-profile earnings. Volume was extremely low, with 6.65 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, well below last year's daily average of 8.47 billion.

Goldman Sachs posted a steep profit drop as trading revenue fell, the latest in a number of underwhelming reports from banks. The investment bank warned there were fewer opportunities to make money in the current environment.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.5 percent to 12,266.75 at the close, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index added 0.6 percent to 1312.62, and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent to 2744.97.