KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket eased on opening this morning despite the continued rise of The Warehouse and a firm Wall Street market.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index was down 0.14 per cent to 4060.8 at 10.30am. Early turnover was quiet at 8.1 million shares with a value of nearly $30 million with the 18 rises outweighing the 15 falls.
The Warehouse continued to rise, up 5 cents to 620, after closing yesterday at 615 buoyed by news of a court decision to allow Foodstuffs and Woolworths to launch takeover bids.
Top stock Telecom was up 1c to 428 soon after open, No 2 Fletcher Building was down 20c to 1202 and No 3 Contact Energy was down 4c to 870.
Other stocks to fall early were Guocoleisure down 10c to 110, AMP down 6c to 1152, Methven down 2c to 218 after yesterday's profit announcement and Sky City continued to fall, down 1c to 478, as the company was yet to receive a takeover offer.
Bucking the trend, Westpac was up 3c to 215, Mainfreight was up 5c to 700, Ryman was up 3c to 208 and Pumpkin Patch was up 2c to 268.
Over 1.1m shares were traded in Auckland Airport and shares were up 1c to 290.
- NZPA