Wellington, July 27 NZPA - The New Zealand stock exchange continued its rise in early trading as shares in leading stock Telecom gained 5c.

Today's early strength follows nine consecutive days of rises which saw the benchmark NZSX-50 index rise 8.2 percent in two weeks.

Around 10.15am today the index was up 12.77 points to 2973.94, having risen 42.5 points on Friday.

Telecom's early gain today took its share price to 285, after it eased a cent on Friday.

Other leading shares Contact Energy and Fletcher Building were both unchanged early, after rises on Friday lifted both 13c, Contact to 614 and Fletcher to 727.

Other early changes today included NZ Refining Co up 10c to 760. That was on top of a 35c rise on Friday after Bloomberg reported US refiner Valero was considering buying either some or all of New Zealand's only oil refinery.

Steel & Tube was up 3c to 298, Auckland Airport gained 2c to 174, while Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lifted 2c to 312.

Shares falling early included Sky TV down 4c to 430 and Infratil down 3c to 177.

In the US, the Nasdaq fell, halting a 12-day run-up, following Microsoft Corp's disappointing quarterly results.

Gains in pharmaceutical and energy shares lifted the Dow and the S&P 500 to fresh eight-month closing highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.3 percent to 9093.24, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 0.3 percent to 979.26, but the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.4 percent to 1965.96.

All three major US stock indexes scored a second straight weekly advance, with the Dow rising 4 percent, the S&P 500 gaining 4.1 percent and the Nasdaq climbing 4.2 percent.