KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket showed little movement in early trading today following three previous days of losses.
The market's benchmark NZSX-50 index started slightly negative today, but about 10 minutes after the market's 10am opening was up 0.44 points to 4271.35.
After closing up 18c yesterday, following the announcement managing director Evan Davies was standing down, SkyCity shares slipped 1c early today to 518.
But after profit takers pushed Fletcher Building down 22c yesterday, investors pushed it up 3c early today to 1251. Third ranked Contact Energy was down 1c early to 909, having added 5c yesterday.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 1c early to 340 after the strong New Zealand dollar weighed on the manufacturing exporter yesterday when it lost 6c.
Other early risers included Pumpkin Patch up 1c to 352, Sanford up 4c to 440, Steel & Tube up 7c to 452, and top stock Telecom up 1c to 457.
The Warehouse added 4c early to 605, after announcing today it had sold a 50 per cent stake in The Base retail complex at Te Rapa to Tainui Group Holdings (TGH) for $37.4 million.
The company said it would report an after tax surplus on divestment of between $11.8m and $12.4m in the 2007 financial year.
Stocks to fall early included Air New Zealand, off 3c to 290, Guinness Peat Group down 2c to 207, Hallenstein Glasson down 4c to 471, Infratil down 1c to 324, and Tower down 2c to 246.
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US stocks closed lower as growing concerns about the subprime mortgage market dragged down shares of Bear Stearns Cos and Goldman Sachs Group.
Shares of Bear Stearns Cos, which last week bailed out a hedge fund it manages that is heavily invested in subprime mortgages, dropped more than 3 per cent after a Merrill Lynch & Co analyst said the brokerage may need to stump up more cash to rescue a second fund.
Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc fell 2.5 per cent after Citigroup Inc said Goldman's subprime mortgage bonds issued last year were being downgraded at the fastest rate of any issuer.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.06 per cent at 13,352.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 0.32 per cent at 1497.74. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.46 per cent at 2577.08.
- NZPA