KEY POINTS:
The sharemarket started the week looking soft, in the wake of record oil prices, falls in United States equities and a sliding New Zealand dollar.
The market was led down by Fletcher Building, which shed 11c early to 818, while Contact Energy slipped 1c to 901.
Shortly after the market's 10am open the NZSX-50 benchmark index was down 5.58 points to 3595.59, after losing 24.4 points on Friday.
Today's uneasy start to trading follows falls in US stocks early on Saturday (NZT) as the price of oil set another record and concerns about the financial sector flared up again after American International Group Inc reported a massive loss.
Oil prices rose to US$126.25 a barrel, a rise of more than 11 per cent since the start of the month on fuel supply concerns and a rush of speculator buying.
At the same time the New Zealand dollar was weakening further across the board, dipping to its lowest point in 3-1/2 months against the US currency around US76.50c.
Despite the early easing on the sharemarket today, some stocks were showing gains with Fisher & Paykel Appliances up 2c to 263 and F& P Healthcare lifting 3c to 261.
Freightways was up 3c early to 334 and Guinness Peat Group added 2c to 180, with The Warehouse up 1c to 536.
Top stock Telecom was unchanged on 383, while Ryman Healthcare slipped 2c to 175, Sky City was down 3c to 390, and Sky TV was also down 3c, to 447. Sanford was down 4c to 451 on small volumes.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.94 per cent on Friday (local time) to close at 12,745.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 0.67 per cent to end at 1388.28, while the Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.23 per cent to 2445.52.
For the week, all three indexes ended lower: The Dow lost 2.4 per cent, the S& P 500 slid 1.8 per cent and the Nasdaq tumbled 1.3 per cent.
- NZPA
