NZ shares tumble early

The New Zealand sharemarket has tumbled in early trading after stocks in the United States fell for a third straight day.

The benchmark NZX-50 index is down 24 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 3060, having fallen 13.3 points yesterday.

Investors in the US were spooked by uncertainty over the health of financial companies, along with concerns that the explosive rally since March may have run ahead of economic reality.

After a brief period of optimism in early US trading, investors largely played down the first sign of growth in manufacturing in a year and a half, and the highest level of pending home sales since June 2007.

In this country, stocks falling early included Fletcher Building, down 11c to $7.63, Contact Energy down 10c to $6.10, and Nuplex down 10c to $2.30.

But shares in top stock Telecom eased just 1c to $2.68, following a decline of 6c yesterday when $75m worth of the stock was sold.

Other early falls included The Warehouse down 5c to $3.95, and Methven down 4c to $1.50.

Shares falling 3c included Fisher & Paykel Healthcare to $3.30, Freightways to $2.94, Hallenstein Glasson to $2.83, NZ Refining to $5.10, NZX to $7.54, Sky TV to $4.40, Steel & Tube to $3.40, Trustpower to $7.57, and Hellaby Holdings to $1.37.

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The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 2 per cent at 9310.60, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 2.2 per cent to 998.04, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 2 per cent to 1968.89.

- NZPA