NZ sharemarket flat early at start of week

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The New Zealand sharemarket was flat in early trading, as key stock Telecom pushed back toward the level of the 14-month high reached last Thursday.

About 15 minutes after the market opened for the week, the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 0.77 points to 3535.02, having slipped 4.5 points on Friday.

Telecom shares were up 1.5c early to 232 as the stock remained within striking distance of Thursday's 235 peak.

Restaurant Brands was up 4c early to 253 on low volume, and retailer The Warehouse added 2c to 376, just below the five-month high 377 reached on Friday.

Fletcher Building was down 2c early to 890, Auckland Airport lost 2c to 228, and Contact Energy dropped 2c to 597.

In the United States, stocks ended a second week of losses on a down note, reflecting growing worries that stocks are on the precipice of a pullback.

Concern about slowed growth worldwide, the coming end of a supportive Federal Reserve policy and the fear of a worsening euro-zone debt crisis are undermining the stock market's ability to maintain an upward direction.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 0.8 per cent at 12,595.75, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index finished down 0.8 per cent at 1337.77, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.2 per cent at 2828.47.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.3 per cent, the S&P 500 was off 0.2 per cent and the Nasdaq was barely up at 0.03 per cent.

- NZPA