Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Market nudges up a point before weekend

Updated at 2:57 pm on 31 July 2010

The benchmark NZX50 index gained one point on Friday to close the week at 3040.

Fletcher Building dropped 2c to $7.60 and Contact Energy 3c to $5.70, while Telecom was unchanged at $1.99.

Among other stocks, Sky City Entertainment was down 1c to $3.03, Sky Network Television was up 3c to $4.83 and the Warehouse gained 2c to $3.53.

Air New Zealand fell 1c to $1.11, Rakon also dropped 1c - to $1.04 - while Infratil rose 1c to $1.63 and NZ Refinery was unchanged at $3.02.

New Zealand Oil and Gas added 1c to finish at $1.24 after announcing it had made just over $30 million from its two offshore Taranaki fields in the three months to June.

New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay was unchanged at 56c.

In currency markets, the NZ dollar was buying 72.16 US cents, 80.25 Australian, 46.22 pence, 62.30 yen and .5523 euro; the TWI stood at 67.10.

Investors offloading risk

Australia's sharemarket suffered broad-based falls, as investors offloaded risk ahead of the weekend.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 30.6 points, or 0.68%, at 4493.5, while the broader All Ordinaries index lost 28.8 points, or 0.63%, to finish at 4507.4.

Copyright © 2010, Radio New Zealand