19 Jul 2012

Offshore markets up

8:50 am on 19 July 2012

Trading on Wall Street finished higher on Wednesday, as corporate profits from Intel and Honeywell, defied fears of a collapse in earnings.

The S&P 500 index touched its highest level since early May.

The Dow Jones Index gained 100 points, or 0.8%, to close at 12,905.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 32 points, or 1.1%, at 2942.

The FTSE100 in London ended up 1.01%, the DAX in Frankfurt was up 1.62% and the CAC40 was up 1.84%.

The Australian 200 Index closed down 17 points, to 4123, but the NZX 50 rose 5 points to close at 3474.

At 8.30am on Thursday, the New Zealand dollar was trading at 79.99 US cents, 77.12 Australian cents, 51.10 pence, 63.05 yen and 0.6515 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was at 72.32.

Brent crude oil was trading at $US106.48 per barrel and gold was trading at $US1573.78 per ounce.