The New Zealand sharemarket was flat in early trading, after weakness in the United States jobs market sapped the global appetite for risk.Gold recorded its biggest one-day gain in more than two months, while the US dollar extended its previous day's stro
The New Zealand sharemarket was flat in early trading, after weakness in the United States jobs market sapped the global appetite for risk.
Gold recorded its biggest one-day gain in more than two months, while the US dollar extended its previous day's strong gains on both the weak US jobs data and softer-than-expected euro zone figures.
In this country Fletcher Building shares gained 3c early to 750, after falling 10c yesterday, while Mainfreight gained 5c to 655 but on small volume.
Telecom gained 1c to 202 and Contact Energy slipped 1c to 569. Nuplex shares fell 2c to 292.
Rural services company PGG Wrightson was down 1c to 55 early, after reporting a full year net profit of $23.3 million, while revenue fell 10.1 percent to $1.15 billion.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was up 1.45 points to 3008.35, after yesterday ending down 29.1 points.
In the US, stocks ended down for a third straight day as the rise in jobless claims and a sobering revenue outlook from Cisco underscored the hurdles to economic recovery.
The latest drop comes a day after all three major indexes posted their worst percentage declines in more than a month, erasing gains for the year in the aftermath of a gloomier outlook from the US Federal Reserve.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.6 percent to 10,319.95, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index dropped 0.5 percent to 1083.61, and the Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 0.8 percent to 2190.27.
