KEY POINTS:
Last week's gloomy mood continued when the New Zealand sharemarket opened today.
By 10.10am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was down 12.49 points to 3476.35, following Friday's drop of 51 points, which came after the Government vetoed a Canadian bid to buy a stake in Auckland International Airport (AIA).
Casting a pall over the market in this country today was a slump in United States shares overnight Friday (NZT) after surprisingly weak earnings from General Electric Co and data showing US consumer sentiment at a 26-year low.
After losing 22c on Friday, AIA slipped a further 2c early today to 211.
But top stock Telecom managed to claw back 2c early to lift itself to 360, having closed down 14c on Friday thanks to the company's managerial briefing on Thursday.
Friday's share price was a 15-year-low.
Gains were a rare sight on the market early today. Nuplex did add 4c to 624, while Steel & Tube was up 7c to 334, but both were on low turnover.
More in keeping with the mood of the market was a 9c fall by Contact Energy to 851 and a 4c fall by Fletcher Building to 816.
The Warehouse was down 4c early to 566, Sky City lost 3c to 389, Pumpkin Patch dropped 5c to 165, Mainfreight was down 4c to 621, and Infratil was down 3c to 210.
In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 2.04 per cent on Friday to 12,325.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 2.04 per cent to 1332.83, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 2.61 per cent at 2290.24.
- NZPA