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Investors punished New Zealand's largest listed company Telecom when the sharemarket opened today.
Telecom shares were down 30c, or 8.2 per cent, to 340, after the company reported its annual results.
The fall in the price of Telecom's shares helped drag the wider market down, with the benchmark NZSX-50 index losing 53.75 points, or 1.6 per cent, to 3325.14 points by around 10.10am.
Telecom today reported its operating surplus from continuing operations down 15.5 per cent to $713 million for the year to the end of June.
For the year to June 2009 the company said it was expecting net profit of $500m to $540m.
Other shares to fall early today included Fletcher Building, down 7c to 673, and TrustPower down 15c to 775.
But some stocks showed good gains with The Warehouse up 8c to 349, Rakon up 4c to 289, and Port of Tauranga up 6c to 665.
Guinness Peat Group rose 6c to 152, after announcing it had agreed to sell its 29.7 per cent stake in Tower Australia Group.
Shares of Tower Ltd in this country, which split from the Australian business in late 2006, were up 14c early to 224.
In the US, stocks tumbled after a big loss from insurer American International Group fuelled fears of more fallout from the credit crisis and Wal-Mart's cautious sales forecast added to concerns about consumer spending.
The Dow Jones industrial average slid 1.93 per cent to close at 11,431.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.79 per cent to 1266.08, while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.95 per cent to 2355.73.
- NZPA