KEY POINTS:
Building and construction giant Fletcher Building led the sharemarket down in early business today.
There was a mixed lead from Wall Street, where blue chips fell but tech stocks rose.
Fletcher Building, which has been under pressure due to concerns about the economy and housing market but rebounded 17c yesterday, today lost 10c of that to be on 825.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index, which has risen 1.4 per cent in the first two days of the week, was down 12.6 points to 3640.7.
Top stock Telecom was down 1c to 393 after announcing acting retail officer and transformation chief designate, Simon Moutter, was quitting to become ceo of Auckland Airport.
AIA was up 2c to 223.
Pumpkin Patch was down 3c to 177 as was Sky TV to 456.
Second-ranked Contact Energy, which lost 9c yesterday, was off another 1c to 899 today. TrustPower was down 10c to 810.
Dorchester Pacific was down 2c to 42c. Shareholders Association chairman Bruce Sheppard has posted a blog suggesting the company will have to make significant additional writedowns.
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In the US, stocks closed mixed after comments by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that financial markets remained unsettled weighed on sentiment and financial stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 45.51 points (0.35 per cent) to 12,830.80 just after the market close, while the tech-rich Nasdaq composite rose 6.63 points (0.27 per cent) to 2495.12.
The broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index was virtually flat, down 0.66 point (0.05 per cent) at 1402.92.
- NZPA