Wellington, April 14 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket started strongly after the Easter break, as dual-listed banking shares leapt ahead.

ANZ was up 118 or 5.9 percent to 2108, with Westpac up 110 or 4.6 percent to 2510, although both rises were on low volumes.

The sharp lift in bank shares followed the lead of the United States where bets that major banks will post reassuring quarterly results fuelled a run-up in financial stocks.

Around 10.15am today the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 24.31 points, nearly 1 percent, to 2595.46, following a 2.2-point rise on Thursday.

Among the market leaders Telecom was unchanged early on 236, Fletcher Building gained 20c to 640 and Contact Energy was unchanged on 575.

Mainfreight gained 20c early to 420, Ebos Group lifted 10c to 475, The Warehouse was up 10c to 343, Trustpower added 7c to 700, NZX was up 5c to 675, and Cavalier Corp gained 4c to 189.

In the US, optimism about banks offset uneasiness about the fate of General Motors. The market was also knocked by a report from Boeing that cuts in output of wide-body planes and lower-than-expected aircraft prices would hurt first-quarter profit.

That sparked caution about the economy's health and the corporate earnings season just getting under way.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.3 percent to 8057.81, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.3 percent to 858.73, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.1 percent to 1653.31.

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