NZ sharemarket falls early

Photo / Kenny Rodger

The New Zealand sharemarket fell in early trading, after a muted reaction yesterday to a downgrade in economic projections by the Reserve Bank.

Contact Energy lost 8c early today to $5.72, Hallenstein Glasson fell 4c to $3.95, and Nuplex was down 3c to $3.41 after rising 6c yesterday.

Fletcher Building, which lost 2c yesterday in a move brokers attributed to profit-taking from its run higher in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, dropped a further 2c early today to $8.31.

Port of Tauranga gained 2c early to $6.76, while Telecom was unchanged on $2.07.

Around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 6.16 points to 3189.48, after edging up 0.4 points yesterday.

***

In the United States, stocks were little changed as mixed economic data and a cautious forecast from economic bellwether FedEx kept the market locked in its recent tight trading range.

Shares in FedEx fell 3.7 per cent to US$82.72 after the company, seen as a proxy for economic demand because of the wide swath of industries it serves, forecast quarterly profit below Wall Street's expectations and warned the recovery may slow.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.2 per cent to 10,594.83, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 0.04 per cent to 1124.67, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.1 per cent to 2303.25.

- NZPA