After being flat for much of the day, the New Zealand top 50 index closed up 12 points to 2707 on turnover of $63 million on Friday.
Telecom closed down 1 cent to $2.34, Contact Energy gained 27c to $7.20, Fletcher Building gained 8c to $6.15 and Hallenstein Glasson, which held its annual meeting on Friday, lost 1c to $2.27.
New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay lost 15c or 20% to 60cc after issuing an earnings downgrade. The Warehouse gained 13c to $3.58.
The dollar was trading at 59.35 US cents, 84.28 Australian cents, 38.19 pence, 51.95 yen and 0.4109 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was 56.62.
The Australian share market shrugged off a strong fall on Wall Street and weaker commodity prices to post a modest gain as a result of stronger banking stocks.
The S&P/ASX200 index gained 34.5 points, or 0.96%, at 3615.7, while the All Ordinaries index rose 25.5 points, or 0.72%, to 3547.2.
On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the March share price index contract was 31 points higher to 3603 on a volume of 3,633 contracts.
