NZ sharemarket lower early

NZPA

Monday 11th July 2011

The New Zealand sharemarket was lower in early trading, after stock markets around the world ended last week with a down day following dismal jobs data out of the United States.

Around 10.25am today the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 6.63 points to 3449.51, after losing 4.4 points on Friday.

Fletcher Building was down 6c early to 829, Port of Tauranga lost 3c to 922, Guinness Peat Group dropped 2c to 77, Skellerup lost 2c to 121, Telecom slipped 1c to 248, while Contact Energy edged up 1c to 534.

In the US, the fall in stock prices on Friday (local time) followed data showing US employers created the fewest number of jobs in nine months. The 18,000 net jobs in created in June were a fraction of what many economists expected and dampened hopes that the economy was improving.

The Standard and Poor's 500 index fell 0.7 percent to 1343.80, leaving it with a gain of just 0.3 percent for the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.5 percent to 12,657.20, only the Dow's second down day over the past nine, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.4 percent to 2859.81, its first loss in two weeks. The Dow rose 0.6 for the week, the Nasdaq 1.6 percent.

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