KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand sharemarket eased slightly in early trading, dragged down by negative reaction to Telecom's annual profit announcement.
While most leading stocks moved higher, market heavyweight Telecom lost 12c to 435 within 10 minutes of the local market opening.
The benchmark NZSX-50 index, having opened higher, eased 0.32 points to 4137.87 in the first 10 minutes.
Before the market opened Telecom announced a bottom line profit of $3.02 billion, two-thirds of it from the sale of the Yellow Pages Group.
Net after-tax operating profit rose 16.5 per cent to $955 million, but Telecom said higher net earnings reflected lower tax, depreciation and amortisation costs.
Fletcher Building, which announced it is closing its board plant in south Auckland, with the loss of 65 jobs, rose 17c to 1233.
Other stocks to rise included Auckland Airport 1c to 329, Contact Energy 7c to 924, Fisher & Paykel Appliances 3c to 924, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare 1c to 329, Infratil 5c to 300, Nuplex 4c to 684, Pumpkin Patch 7c to 337 and The Warehouse 9c to 620.
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Wall Street closed its session higher a fter several days of volatility.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 100.96 points, or 0.76 per cent, to 13,463.33.
The Nasdaq composite rose 22.11 points, 0.87 per cent, to 2575.98 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 6.39 points, 0.44 per cent, to 1472.20.
- NZPA