22 Sep 2008

Market finishes up 69 points

8:02 pm on 22 September 2008

The United States government decision to fix the mortgage debt problem gave investors the courage to return to the sharemarket, with the NZX 50 index closing up 69 points to 3256 on Monday on turnover of $79 million.

Telecom was up 10 cents to $2.82, while fellow market heavyweight Contact Energy was up 13c to $8.70. Fletcher Building was up 34c to $7.32.

Sky City Entertainment was down 2c to $3.53, Fisher & Paykel Appliances was down 1c to $1.71 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 7c to $3.09.

The Warehouse was up 3c to $3.15, while Vector rose 6c to $2.20.

The dollar was trading at 68.65 US cents, 82.63 Australian cents, 37.49 pence, 73.17 yen and 0.4731 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was 64.55.

Across the Tasman, the Australian 200 index was up 201 points, or 4%, to 5001 by late Monday afternoon.

The Australian sharemarket surged more than 4% after the bailout by the US government at the weekend, and the ban on short-selling locally.

The S&P/ASX200 was up 216.4 points, or 4.5%, to 5020.5, while the All Ordinaries gained 209.4 points, or 4.33%, to 5050.1.

On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the December share price index contract was 259 points higher at 5054, on a volume of 56,009 contracts.