NZX lifts again with 10th day of gains

File photo / NZH

The New Zealand sharemarket lifted again today, with the benchmark NZX-50 index rising 13.138 points (0.385 per cent) to finish at 3421.187 - its 10th successive day of gains.

The NZX-50 index yesterday gained 19.4 points.

Today it notched up the additional gains even though Fletcher Building - a key beneficiary of the proposed Christchurch reconstruction - lost 7c of the 20c gain it retained yesterday after spiking to a three-year high of 928.

Today, Fletcher finished trading at 917 as 4.8m shares changed hands, with the company saying it had control of more than 87 per cent of pipe-maker Crane Group.

OceanaGold fell 20c (5.26 per cent) to 360. It operates the nation's biggest goldmine, Macraes, and the Reefton goldfield, and announced today that it had found of further gold-bearing deposits in drilling tests at Otago's Frasers underground mine.

NZ Refining Co dropped nearly 2 per cent, by 10c to 495.

Mainfreight rose 12c to 887, Ebos Group was up 10c to 760, The Warehouse added 4c to 349, Air New Zealand lifted 1c to 111.

Cornerstone stock Telecom rose 3c to 202 as the company asked the Government for an easier ride on its regulatory costs from providing rural internet links.

GPG's insurer Tower was up 8c to 188, despite having said that it is likely to face extra costs of more than $15 million from the Christchurch earthquakes.

Across the Tasman, Australian stocks bounced from early lows to finish at a three-week high, though trading involved relatively small volumes in the run-up to the end of the first quarter.

At the close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 22.2 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 4755.8, after falling as low as 4721.5 in early trade. The broader All Ordinaries gained 19.3 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 4834.2.

Among the major sectors, financials gained 0.4 per cent, energy rose 0.3 per cent and materials added 0.2 per cent.

In the United States, stocks spent most of the day in positive territory driven by strength in the telecommunications sector and consumer spending data.

But by the end of the day indices were down as the corporate outlook was clouded ahead of earnings and uncertainty continued to creep from abroad, while volume hit its lowest level of the year.

A warning from hotel operator Marriott International hurt hotel and other consumer shares, amid expectations of other negative corporate earnings pre-announcements.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.2 per cent to 12,197.88, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.3 per cent to 1310.19, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.5 per cent to 2730.68.

- NZPA