KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket opened easier today although the decline of recent sessions was much gentler.
The NZSX-50 index was down 1.6 points to 4087 at 10.20am. The market fell 1.1 per cent yesterday and today's fall is the fourth in succession.
Turnover was very light at $18m with 15 rises and 17 falls among the 65 stocks traded.
Of the leaders, Telecom was down 1c to 420, Fletcher Building, which is holding its annual meeting today, was up 2c to 1120, and Contact Energy was unchanged.
Fletcher said it expected its net profit before unusuals to be from $450-460m. It said earnings for the first four months were ahead of last year.
Air New Zealand, which has taken a battering lately due to high fuel prices and lost 5c yesterday as Pacific Blue opened up its domestic service, was up 4c to 200.
The only top 50 stock to move more than 2c was exchange operator NZX, down 10c to 940.
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On Wall Street, US stocks fell for a fourth straight session led by a widening sell-off in technology stocks on worries about business spending, while a drop in oil prices hit shares of energy producers.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed below 13,000 for the first time since August 16.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 61.21 points, or 0.47 per cent, to close unofficially at 12981.53. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 15.16 points, or 1.04 per cent, to finish unofficially at 1438.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 43.81 points, or 1.67 per cent, to close unofficially at 2584.13.
- NZPA
