Wellington, Oct 1 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket edged ahead in early trading, with a jump in NZ Refining Co's share price helping balance a fall by Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.

Around 10.20am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 2.09 points to 3163.15, having gained 5.7 points yesterday.

NZ Refining Co shares gained 18c, or 3.9 percent, early to 480, while F&P Healthcare slipped 6c to 322.

Other early risers included Mainfreight, up 3c to 535, Contact Energy up 2c to 578, Fletcher Building up 2c to 837, and Port of Tauranga up 2c to 680.

As its shareholders gathered for the company's annual meeting, Telecom's share price was unchanged at 266.

In the United States, stocks fell after a surprising contraction in an index of Midwest business activity, but buying of technology bellwethers like Cisco Systems Inc at the end of a strong quarter limited losses.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.3 percent to 9712.28, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.3 percent to 1057.08, and the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.1 percent to 2122.42.

Even so, the Dow -- up 15 percent this quarter -- marked its best quarterly performance since the fourth quarter of 1998, while the S&P 500 notched its second straight quarterly advance of 15 percent. The Nasdaq gained 15.7 percent for the third quarter.