Wellington - The New Zealand stock market - the first to open and close every day - finished down again Monday after rallying in nervous trading.

The benchmark NZX 50 index, which slumped 4.7 per cent to 2,805.31 on Friday, ended the day Monday 0.82 per cent lower on 2,782.39.

Trading began the day in negative territory but the index recovered to be up by more than 1 per cent by noon before falling again.

Wellington - Australian budget carrier Jetstar Airways announced Monday that it was expanding services on the highly competitive routes across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.

Jetstar, a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas Airways, said it would start daily flights on April 28 from Auckland to Sydney and the Queensland Gold Coast.

Chief executive Bruce Buchanan said the flights would complement Qantas' four daily Auckland-Sydney services, and he did not see the parent carrier scaling back its New Zealand routes.

Wellington - The New Zealand stock market - the first to open in the world every day - rose slightly Monday morning after opening down in nervous early trading.

The benchmark NZX 50 index, which slumped 4.7 per cent to 2,805.31 on Friday, started the day down 0.74 per cent but reversed early losses by noon to be up 1.15 per cent at 2,837 and rising.

Wellington - New Zealand will guarantee customer deposits in banks and other financial institutions which opt into a scheme designed to shore up confidence in the current international financial crisis, the government announced on Sunday.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen said, "The scheme will cover all retail deposits of participating New Zealand-registered banks and retail deposits by locals in non-bank deposit-taking entities. This would include building societies, credit unions and deposit-taking finance companies."

Wellington - The state of the economy in New Zealand, which is officially in recession, was the key issue when the main parties formally kicked off their campaigns for next month's general election on Sunday.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, whose Labour Party has led minority coalition governments for the last nine years, moved to calm fears about the global financial crisis by announcing that she would guarantee deposits in bank savings accounts.

A fine knock of 85 by Junaid Siddique and an unbeaten 60 by skipper Mohammad Ashraful guided Bangladesh to their first win over New Zealand in a one-day international on Thursday. 

Chasing a victory target of 202 in 50 overs, Bangladesh reached their target in the 46th over with seven wickets in hand. For his match winning knock, opening batsman Siddique was named as the Man of the match. Skipper Ashraful hit five fours and a six in his 56-ball innings. He added 109-runs for the third-wicket with Siddique.