The New Zealand sharemarket started the week with a jump, after a big bounce in United States equities despite awful job figures.
Among leading stocks, Telecom was up 3c early to 235, Contact Energy gained 9c to 694 and Fletcher Building lifted 3c to 565.
Sky City was
up 8c to 304, with The Warehouse also up 8c, to 338. Sky TV lifted 6c to 376, while stocks rising 5c included Fisher & Paykel Appliances to 140, Freightways to 295, Rakon to 135, Ryman Healthcare to 155, and Trustpower to 720.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 28.99 points, or 1.1 per cent, to 2735.71, more than erasing Friday's fall of 24 points.
F&P Healthcare was up 4c to 305, Michael Hill International rose 4c to 62, while Auckland Airport was up 2c to 171, ING Property Trust lifted 2c to 66 and Nuplex gained 2c to 340.
The few stocks to fall early included Mainfreight, down 5c to 475, NZ Oil & Gas down 3c to 121 and Hallenstein Glasson down 4c to 228.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 3.1 per cent on Friday (local time) to 8635.42 after falling by 258 and rising as much as 310 in the volatile trading late in the session.
Broader stock indicators also advanced. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.7 per cent to 876.07 and the Nasdaq composite index rose 4.4 per cent to 1509.31.
The Dow traded in a 568-point range as investors' shock dissipated over data showing employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November compared with the 320,00 that economists forecast. Ultimately, even a terrible reading on employment wasn't surprising to a market that has been drubbed by a stream of bad economic news.
"In a kind of paradoxical sense, the really ugly employment numbers probably helped the case for more help from Washington, whether it's through the broader stimulus plan or more targeted industry measures," said Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jefferies & Co.
- NZPA
