KEY POINTS:
A solid start by Sky TV helped the New Zealand sharemarket to a small gain in early trading today, but within about 10 minutes of opening the market was flat.
After falling 10c yesterday, Sky TV was up 5c in early trading, but shortly after the market opened the gain was pared to 2c, taking the stock to $4.22.
Several other stocks also gained 2c early, including Sky City which was at $3.04, Ryman Healthcare at $1.40, NZX at $5.75, and Contact Energy at $6.70.
Market heavyweight Telecom was down 1c early to $2.68, on top of a 1c fall yesterday. It was announced yesterday that Hutchison Telecommunications, in which Telecom has a 10 per cent stake, is to merge into a 50/50 joint venture with Vodafone Australia.
Around 10.20am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down just 0.43 points to 2766.13, having closed down 6.9 points yesterday.
Among the bigger early losers, Ebos Group was down 10c to $4.30, while dual-listed bank ANZ was down 10c to $15.80, although Westpac rose 4c to $20.94.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 2c to $3.35, with The Warehouse also down 2c, to $3.48.
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In the United States, the Dow and Nasdaq dipped as falling oil prices hurt energy shares and a brokerage raised concerns about Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, blunting a rise in financial stocks on hopes a bailout will spare shareholders.
The Dow Jones industrial average provisionally eased 0.1 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.2 points.
- NZPA
