NZ stocks: Market starts week firmly

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week firmly, with the reporting season under way and with offshore equity markets rising.

Still, the market had a hesitant tone ahead of the Fletcher Building annual result on Wednesday and Contact Energy result on Friday.

The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed up 11.978 points, or 0.39 per cent, at 3080.974, after reaching a 10-month high last Wednesday around 3113. Turnover was worth $81.64 million. There were 61 rises and 25 falls among the 115 stocks traded.

"The results season started on Friday but the main results will start coming through as the week goes on," said Grant Williamson, director at Hamilton, Hindin Greene.

Investors will be looking for clues about the state of the economy.

The state of the US economy looked better on Friday (US time), as the US July jobs report was not as bleak as feared and underpinned hopes the economy was on track for recovery.

The data boosted stocks across the board, but especially consumer-dependent retailers, and all three major US stock indices wrapped up a fourth week of gains.

"Today's market strength is pretty much due to world markets firming up," said Mr Williamson.

The leaders unusually were not driving the market. Telecom eased 2c to 275 and Fletcher Building eased 14c to 718. Contact Energy eased 1c to 649.

NZX rose 24c to 785 on light volume in an ongoing reaction to a strong result on Friday.

Nuplex rose 7c to 207 and Ryman rose 6c to 191.

Guinness Peat Group rose 2c to 78, and Hellaby rose 2c to 122.

Cavalier rose 2c to 230 and SkyTV rose 3c to 469.

Lion Nathan rose 6c to 1475.

NZ Refining rose 10c to 690 and Fisher and Paykel Appliances was unchanged at 84.

Freightways rose 5c to 328 ahead of its result next Monday and Mainfreight rose 13c to 498.

Michael Hill fell 2c to 68 and Westpac fell 20 to 2830. TrustPower was unchanged at 761.

The Warehouse rose 2c to 401 and SkyCity was unchanged at 339. Sealegs rose 4c to 26 and Pyne Gould fell 16c to 134.

In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 1.2 per cent at 9370.07, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1.3 per cent at 1010.48, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.4 per cent at 2000.25.

For the week, the Dow was up 2.2 per cent, the S&P 500 was up 2.3 per cent and the Nasdaq was up 1.1 per cent.

- NZPA