Sharemarket starts week with early pull back

File photo / NZ Herald

The New Zealand sharemarket started the week with a modest pull back from near three-year highs reached on Friday.

Around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 7.27 points to 3570.17, having topped 3578 on Friday and ending the day up 8.4 points.

In today's early trading, Fletcher Building lost 4c to $9.14, Freightways dropped 2c to $3.50, Skellerup was down 2c to $1.30, Contact Energy slipped 1c to $5.99, and Telecom was down 1c to $2.29.

Trustpower lifted 3c early to $7.65, The Warehouse gained 2c to $3.70, and NZ Refining Co lifted 2c to $4.50.

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In the United States, shares ended last week with a fall, as euro zone debt issues continued to weigh on investors, and with retail stocks losing ground after a weak profit outlook from Gap.

"It seems like there's more of a consensus building that there's some potential risk coming on line here," said Natalie Trunow, chief investment officer of equities at Calvert Investment Management Inc in Bethesda, Maryland, which manages about $US14.8 billion.

"The economic recovery and macro picture do seem to indicate a more protracted slow economic recovery long term," Trunow said.

"Unless we see a great deal of positive surprises on economic indicators, I think some of these negative events will continue to weigh on the market."

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 0.7 per cent at 12,512.04, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 0.8 per cent at 1333.27, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.7 per cent to close at 2803.32.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.7 per cent, the S&P 500 was down 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq was down 0.9 per cent.

- NZPA