The New Zealand sharemarket started the day with a burst which fizzled out as the day progressed and a mixed bag of profit results were reported.
The strong start followed gains by global equities, as investor worry was eased after China rejected a report it was reviewing its euro-zone bond holdings due to the region's debt crisis.
The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 12.913 points, or 0.425 percent, at 3047.746. Turnover was worth $93.5 million. There were 56 rises and 27 falls among the 115 stocks traded.
Insurer and fund manager Tower rose 5c to $1.89, after saying it would pay its first interim dividend since 2002 as it reported a 28.8 percent rise to $27.7m in underlying half year profit.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances ended unchanged at 55c after saying its appliances business had recovered in the second half of the financial year, despite a continuation of difficult trading conditions in the United States. Full year normalised group profit after tax of $18m, was down from $33.8m the year before.
"The Fisher & Paykel result was better than their previous market guidance but they were cautious about profit guidance for the 2011 year," said Stephen Wright at ASB Securities. "There was nothing to drive the share price on."
He said Tower was a pretty under-rated company which had been doing well in recent years.
Fletcher Building rose 19c to $8.12 on a day in which the number of consents for new buildings showed an encouraging surge in April, but were still running at historically low levels.
Contact Energy ended down 5c at $5.87 after gained 8c in early trading.
Mainfreight, which reported earlier this week, rose 24c to $6.20. Sanford, which disappointed investors with its profit report this week, fell 2c to $4.25.
AMP rose 27 to $6.95 and AMP Office Trust rose 2c to 73c.
NZX rose 5c to $1.65. NZOG rose 4c to $1.41 and NZ Refining rose 13c to $3.38.
TrustPower rose 10c to $7.25, Nuplex rose 2c to $3.02 and Auckland Airport rose 1c to $1.88.
SkyTV rose 5c to $4.70 and SkyCity rose 2c to $2.94.
Allied Farmers fell 0.5c to 5.9c after disclosing a further downward revaluation of the assets acquired from Hanover Finance and United Finance.
Xero rose 8c to $1.45.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 2.9 percent to 10,258.99, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 3.3 percent to 1103.06, and the Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 3.7 percent to 2277.68.
