NZ sharemarket continues to rise

Wednesday 30th March 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket continued its rise of the past fortnight in early trade, as Fletcher Building regained some of the ground it lost yesterday.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 6.29 points to 3427.48. Yesterday it closed up 13.1 points - the 10th successive trading day of gains - and is closing in on the 33-month high near 3437 reached on March 7.

In early trading today Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) was up 4c to $9.21, having lost 7c yesterday after reaching a three-year high at $9.28 on Monday.

Mainfreight (NZX: MFT ) was up 8c to $8.95, Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) gained 2c to $5.81, Tower (NZX: TWR ) lifted 2c to $1.90, and Telecom (NZX: TEL ) edged up 0.5c to $2.02.5. Vector (NZX: CVT ) was down 4c to $2.44 and Freightways (NZX: FRE ) lost 4c to $3.24.

Rakon (NZX: RAK ) was up 5c early to $1.10 after issuing a statement saying it was continuing to have significant growth in demand for its products into smart wireless devices.

In the US, strength in energy lifted stocks as investors concentrated on adding to winning positions as the quarter winds down, but uncertainty kept trading volume light.

"I don't think a lot of people know what to do. They hear about how bullish it is to reconstruct Japan but until the disaster is quantified, they are not going to do anything," said Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Advisors in Boynton Beach, Florida.

"When the market doesn't know what to do, it tends to go up on low volume and down on higher volume because when people get nervous, they sell."

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.7% to 12,279.01, the Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.7% to 1319.44, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1% to 2756.89.

NZPA

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