15 Aug 2011

NZX and ASX up again

1:20 pm on 15 August 2011

The New Zealand stock market has followed Wall Street's lead on Monday upwards from Friday.

By 12.20pm on Monday, the NZX50 index had risen 28 points, or 0.8%, to 3244 on turnover of $34 million.

Across the Tasman, the Australian 200 index was up 66 points, or 1.6%, at 42 38

The New Zealand dollar was at 83.66 US cents, 80.29 Australian, 51.28 pence, 64.38 yen and 0.5845 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 72.12.

Brent crude oil on Monday was trading at $US108.77 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1745.86 per ounce.

Fletcher Building was up 16 cents to $7.78, Telecom was up 4c to $2.49 and Contact Energy was up 2c at $4.97.

Sky City Entertainment Group was up 7c at $3.47, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 2c at $2.26 and Auckland International Airport Ltd was up 1.5c to $2.19.

NZX was up 4c to $2.24 after its half year profit fell 21% to $4.5 million, largely due to foreign exchange losses.

Freightways was up 2 cents to $3.28 after its full year profit rose 29% to $29.9 million.

Steel & Tube was up 4c to $2.52 and Mainfreight was up 15c to $10.20.

The Warehouse was up 4c at $3.40, Ebos Group was up 8c at $6.73, Vector was up 2c to $2.32 and Nuplex was up 2c to $2.42.

The NZX opened at 3217 on Monday after rising on three consecutive sessions since Wednesday.

Swinging week

Wild swings dominated US markets last week. The Dow Jones Index rose 126 points, or 1.1%, to end at 11,269 on Friday.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 15 points, or 0.6%, at 2508.

The FTSE 100 in London rose 3%, the DAX in Frankfurt climbed 3.5% and the CAC-40 in Paris rose 4.2% due to a ban on short-selling ban of financial shares by France, Italy, Spain and Belgium which eased fears over recent sharp declines.

The Nikkei in Japan fell 18 points to 8964.

The Australian 200 Index rose 32 points to close at 4173.