Sharemarket flat early

Thursday 14th April 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket was flat in early trading, following the lead of the United States where an initial rise in stocks fizzled on doubts over corporate profits.

In this country the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 0.43 points to 3458.05 in quiet trading around 10.15am, having gained 6.3 points yesterday.

Carpet maker Cavalier Corp (NZX: CAV ) fell 4c early to $3.45, Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) was down 1c to $5.82, Telecom (NZX: TEL ) slipped 0.5c to $1.97.5, Vector (NZX: VCT ) gained 4c to $2.43, Mainfreight (NZX: MFT ) lifted 4c to $9.34, and Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) edged up 1c to $9.29.

Jeweller Michael Hill (NZX: MHI ) was untraded early after reporting an 8.6% rise in same store sales to $359.7 million in the nine months to the end of March. The shares closed at 89 yesterday.

The lacklustre performance by stocks in the US came despite strong profit growth from JPMorgan Chase & Co, the No.2 US bank.

Analysts questioned whether the results from JPMorgan, the first major Wall Street bank to report this quarter, were a one-time win or a harbinger of others' performance.

"People are getting the sense that no matter what these companies say, the easy money has already been made so it will be tough to see further upward movement," said Rick Fier, vice president at Conifer Securities in New York, which has about US$7 billion in assets under administration.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.1% to 12,270.99, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index inched up 0.02% to 1314.41, and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.6% to 2761.52.

NZPA

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