Fletcher Building shares up early

NZPA

Wednesday 17th August 2011

Shares in Fletcher Building rose strongly when the New Zealand sharemarket opened after the company reported a 4 percent rise in full year net profit.

The early 17c rise in Fletcher shares to 790 helped lift the benchmark NZX-50 index 7.11 points to 3280.85 around 10.20am, after it gained 21.1 points yesterday.

Shares in Freightways were up 3c to 323, Vector gained 2c to 239, and Auckland Airport lifted 2c to 222.5. Telecom fell 2.5c to 260, Abano Healthcare dropped 2c to 423, Contact Energy lost 3c to 496, and Hallenstein Glasson was down 2c to 350.

Sky City shares were unchanged on 351 after the company reported a 4 percent rise in normalised net profit.

In the United States, stocks fell after three days of gains when a meeting between the heads of France and Germany failed to quell fears about euro zone leaders' ability to contain the region's sovereign debt woes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy detailed plans for closer euro zone integration but they did not include boosting the size of the euro zone's rescue fund or sales of euro bonds.

Shares of financials, seen as vulnerable to a European fiscal crisis, added to their decline.

Shares of retailers Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Home Depot Inc both rose after the industry bellwethers exceeded analysts' expectations for quarterly numbers.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.7 percent at 11,405.93, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 1 percent at 1192.76, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.2 percent at 2523.45.

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