NZ sharemarket rises strongly early

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The New Zealand sharemarket rose strongly in early trading, shortly after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou survived a confidence vote in parliament.

A loss would have likely led to early elections and thrown into question whether Greece could pass a new austerity bill by the end of June as demanded by the country's international creditors.

Unless the new measures pass, Greece will not receive the next batch of funds from its bailout loans, and will face a disastrous default.

Expectations that Papandreou would win had lifted world markets.

A default by Greece could drag down Greek and European banks as well as stoking renewed fears over the finances of other eurozone countries, such as Portugal, Ireland and Spain.

In this country, around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 16.88 points to 3476.45, having slipped 7.9 points yesterday.

Among the major stocks, Fletcher Building gained 10c early to 860, Contact Energy was up 2c to 559, and Telecom edged up 0.5c to 242.

OceanaGold was up 13c to 313, Mainfreight lifted 4c to 1014, The Warehouse gained 3c to 355, Sky TV lifted 2c to 565, Ryman Healthcare was up 2c to 268, and Air New Zealand added 2c to 114.

The few stocks falling early included Trustpower down 4c to 720, Abano Healthcare down 3c to 454, and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 3c to 294.

In the United States, stocks posted gains for the fourth day.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.9 percent to 12,190.01 at the close, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.3 percent to 1295.52, and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 2.2 percent to 2687.26.

- NZPA