Wellington, Oct 24 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket rose firmly in early trade today, after US stocks clawed back from five-year lows in a volatile session.

The NZ market was helped to move ahead early by a 12c gain in Fletcher Building shares to 612 and an 11c gain in Contact Energy stocks to 713. Telecom was up 2c to 228.

Stock market operator NZX was up 11c to 604 after posting a 20 percent increase in net profit to $7.8 million for the nine months to the end of September.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 27.32 points, or 0.97 percent, to 2834.66. Yesterday it closed down 92.1 points.

Among other stocks to rise today, NZ Refining Co was up 10c to 610, Mainfreight was up 9c to 589, Rakon lifted 7c to 208, and Auckland Airport was up 5c to 184.

Up 4c were Air NZ to 90, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare to 314, and Pike River Coal to 133.

In the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 2 percent to 8691.25, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 1.3 percent to 908.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.7 percent at 1603.91.

The US market was led by a bounce in energy and health care stocks after oil recovered from a 16-month trough and top pharmaceutical companies posted reassuring earnings.

The session was typical of the recent volatility gripping Wall Street, with stocks swinging in a 7 percent range and the day's final direction only becoming clear in the last minutes of trading.

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