NZ stocks jump after huge Wall St surge

A trader on Wall St places his order amid the buying frenzy. Photo / AP

New Zealand shares were up more than 2 per cent when the market opened and rose further, after a surge of around 7 per cent in United States stocks.

The US exuberance came after the Obama administration detailed a plan to purge toxic assets from bank balance sheets.

That fuelled optimism about a revival in US bank lending and drove double-digit gains in financial shares.

In this country the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 73.43 points, or 2.85 per cent, to 2665.85 around 1.15pm, after slipping 7.6 points yesterday.

Leading the field were dual-listed banks, with Westpac up 94c, or 4.1 per cent, to $23.94, and ANZ up 61c, or 3.3 per cent, to $19.01.

Leading shares Fletcher Building and Contact Energy also powered forward, with Fletcher up 40c, or 6.6 per cent, to $6.50, and Contact up 25c, or 4.2 per cent, to $6.15. Telecom gained 8c early to $2.40.

Other stocks to rise early included NZX up 10c to $6.20, Port of Tauranga up 10c to $4.95, Sky TV up 10c to $4.00, Sky City up 8c to $2.85, Freightways up 7c to $2.86, Infratil up 7c to $1.55, and The Warehouse up 7c to $3.60.

Auckland Airport rose 6c to $1.76, Nuplex gained 6c to 59, Cavalier Corp was up 5c to $1.60, and Ebos Group up 5c to $4.80.

Stocks rising 4c included Guinness Peat Group to 77, Hallenstein Glasson to $2.30, Rakon to $1.25, Ryman Healthcare to $1.42, and Steel & Tube to $2.65.

In the US, the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials posted their biggest one-day percentage gains since late October after Wall Street finally got what it was asking for: relief for the battered banking sector and more data suggesting the housing market could be on the mend.

Banks were standouts in the broad-based rally, with Citigroup up 19.5 per cent to US$3.13 and Bank of America up 26 per cent to US$7.80.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 6.8 per cent to 7775.86, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged 7.1 per cent to 822.92, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 6.8 per cent to 1555.77.

- NZPA