KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket gave up yesterday's gains in early business today as it followed Wall Street down.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index, which yesterday rose 19.18 points or 0.52 per cent, was today down 19.6 points to 3660.8 at 10.20am.
Fletcher Building was down 13c to 872, while market leader Telecom was down 2c to 395 and Contact Energy was off 4c to 940 after losing 12c yesterday as the excitement about BG's bid for Contact's parent Origin ebbed.
Tower, which yesterday jumped 15 cents following Guinness Peat Group's announcement of a partial takeover bid at 230/share on Friday, rose another cent to 224.
GPG was down 1c to 174.
Freight firm Mainfreight was down 9c to 696 despite the good price Toll received for its New Zealand rail and ferry operations as the Government renationalised the company. Freightways was up 4c to 330. Toll said it was on the hunt for another NZ acquisition.
TrustPower was up 8c to 795, while Sky TV was down 4c to 460 as was Nuplex to 636.
Finance company Dorchester Pacific was up 2c to 40c.
*** In the US, shares swung lower after Microsoft pulled the plug on its Yahoo takeover bid and a fresh record high for oil prices hurt momentum on Wall Street after three positive weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 90.62 points (0.69 per cent) to 12,967.58 at the closing bell and the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite dropped 12.87 points (0.52 per cent) to 2464.12.
The broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index shed 6.52 points (0.46 per cent) to a preliminary close of 1407.38.
