Modest early rise for sharemarket

Wednesday 15th December 2010

The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trade, with shares in New Zealand Refining Co pushing to an eight-month high as petrol prices hover around $2 a litre.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 3.31 points to 3292.26, after yesterday slipping 2.3 points. li

NZ Refining (NZX: NZR ) added 9c early to 400, Ebos Group (NZX: EBO ) lifted 5c to 738, Xero (NZX: XRO ) gained 5c to a new high 232, NZX (NZX: NZX ) was up 2c to 147, and Restaurant Brands (NZX: RBD ) added 2c to 263.

Methven (NZX: MVN ) which today went ex-dividend, dropped 7c to 160, Mainfreight (NZX: MFT ) was down 5c to 765, Sky TV (NZX: SKT ) dropped 4c to 512, and Hellaby Holdings (NZX: HBY ) slipped 2c to 202.

In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average rose but the Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq Composite cut their gains and ended mostly flat in a late-day sell-off, as yet another cautious statement from the Federal Reserve on the economy offset strong November retail sales.

The Fed, in a policy statement after its last scheduled meeting of the year, said the economic recovery was still too slow to bring down unemployment and reaffirmed its commitment to purchase $US600 billion ($NZ798 billion) in bonds to stimulate growth and create jobs, as had been expected.

Sales at US retailers rose 0.8% in November, up for a fifth straight month and pointing to a firm rebound in consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the US economy.

According to preliminary data, the Dow gained 0.4% to 11,477.30, the S&P 500 edged up 0.1% to 1241.58, and the Nasdaq added 0.1% to 2627.72.

NZPA

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