NZ shares show modest early rise

Wednesday 12th January 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket rose modestly in early trading as insurer Tower slipped and Fletcher Building gained.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 3.7 points to 3333.46, having yesterday gained 5.7 points.

Fletcher Building (NZX: FBU ) was up 4c to $7.87 early, on the day the company's $A740 million ($NZ960m) offer for ASX-listed building supplies firm Crane Group opened.

Tower (NZX: TWR ) was down 6c to $2.01, after shares in big Australian insurers were hit yesterday on concerns about the effect on earnings of insurance payouts resulting from the Queensland floods.

Contact Energy (NZX: CEN ) fell 3c to $6.20, having announced after the market closed yesterday that its current managing director David Baldwin would step down in three months and rejoin parent company Origin Energy. His successor, Dennis Barnes, has worked for Origin since 1998.

Restaurant Brands (NZX: RBD ) was down 3c to $2.65, Nuplex (NZX: NPX ) gained 2c to $3.52, and Telecom (NZX: TEL ) was unchanged early on $2.20.

In the US energy shares helped the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 end a three-day losing streak, even as investors worried rising fuel costs will undercut economic growth.

The Dow gained 0.3% to 11,671.81, according to the preliminary figures, while the S&P gained 0.4% to 1274.47, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3% to 2716.83.

NZPA

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