The New Zealand sharemarket fell in early trading after stocks in the United States tumbled in reaction to escalating tensions in the Korean peninsula and as eurozone debt worries mounted.NZ Oil&Gas clawed back 3c to 90 in the first few minutes of tra
The New Zealand sharemarket fell in early trading after stocks in the United States tumbled in reaction to escalating tensions in the Korean peninsula and as eurozone debt worries mounted.
NZ Oil&Gas clawed back 3c to 90 in the first few minutes of trading, having ended down 33c yesterday after a trading halt was lifted about 1pm. NZOG is a 29.4 percent shareholder in Pike River Coal, which had an explosion at its West Coast mine on Friday which has left 29 men unaccounted for.
Sky TV also managed an early 3c gain, on small volume, to 530, but most of the other moves were down.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 10.48 points to 3248.29, its lowest level in a month, after falling 37.9 points yesterday.
Contact Energy fell 5c to 585, Fletcher Building lost 4c to 796, Steel&Tube dropped 4c to 201, Methven fell 3c to 165, Freightways fell 2c to 298, and Rakon fell 2c to 117.
Fisher&Paykel Healthcare was also down 2c early, to 300, after reporting half year net profit, before a one-off non-cash deferred tax change, falling to $28.6 million, compared to $37m a year earlier. The company attributed most of the decline to unfavourable exchange rate movements.
In the US, preliminary calculations showed the Dow Jones industrial average ending down 1.3 percent to end unofficially at 11,036.37, the Standard&Poor's 500 Index fell 1.4 percent to 1180.73, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.5 percent to 2494.95.
Minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest policy-setting meeting early this month showed officials downgraded their assessment of the US economy, with the Fed expecting the economy to grow at a moderate pace next year, with unemployment staying high and inflation low.
