New Zealand sharemarket flat early

The New Zealand sharemarket was flat in early trading, after nine consecutive days of gains which saw it near a seven-week intraday high yesterday.

Action on the market was muted early with the few movements including Sky TV up 4c to $5.08, Freightways up 3c to $3.10, Steel & Tube up 2c to $2.70, and Guinness Peat Group down 2c to 90.

No early trading was recorded for retailer Briscoe Group, leaving it near its year high on $1.35 after reporting an 80.7 per cent lift in full year net profit to $21 million, on sales revenue up 7.3 per cent to $416.7m.

Postie Plus Group shares were unchanged on 40c after reporting a smaller first half loss of $1.1m, compared to a year earlier, as sales rose.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 0.06 points to 3222.87, having started the day down slightly. Yesterday it was up 8.2 points at the close.

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In the United States, technology shares pushed the Nasdaq higher on an otherwise flat day for US stocks, led by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and Cisco Systems.

The broad S&P 500 finished just below the break-even mark, halting a six-day run-up, while the Nasdaq racked up a fresh 18-month closing high.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.1 per cent, to end unofficially at 10,552.52, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off just 0.02 per cent at 1138.50. while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.3 per cent to 2332.21.

- NZPA