Sharemarket opens weaker

The New Zealand sharemarket opened on a weaker note this morning.

The benchmark NZX-50 index, which lost 8.7 points yesterday after gaining strongly earlier in the week, shed another 18.57 points or 0.6 per cent to 3065.50 in the first 10 minutes of trading today.

The three market heavyweights all fell - Telecom 3c to $2.82, Fletcher Building 10c to $7.35 and Contact Energy 6c to $6.55.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare dropped 4c to $3.15, while the Appliances stock was among a few to edge upwards - 1c to 87.

Shedding 3c each were Nuplex to $1.98, Sky City to $3.28 and Sky TV to $4.60, while The Warehouse slipped 4c to $4.00. Tower was down 2c to $1.76, as was Cavalier to $2.38.

Skellerup firmed 2c to 57, while Methven at $1.46, NZ Farming Systems at 53 and Steel and Tube at $3.30 were all up 1c.

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- Reuters reported from New York that US stocks slipped after weak data on the services sector and private payrolls cooled recent optimism the recession was retreating, but the market finished off its lows as investors ventured into riskier financial shares.

The market's decline came on the heels of a four-day rally that had driven the three major US stock indices to close on Tuesday at their highest levels in nine to 10 months.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 39.22 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 9280.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 2.93 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 1002.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 18.26 points, or 0.91 per cent, to 1993.05.

- NZPA