Wellington, April 21 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket tumbled in early trading in the wake of falls of more than 3 percent in European and United States stock indices as analysts ratcheted back their earnings expectations.

The sharp fall in stocks around the world, and a 9 percent drop in crude oil followed a jump in troubled loans at Bank of America and renewed economic jitters which cooled hopes that the worst of the global slowdown was over.

Among leading shares in this country Telecom was down 5c early to 245, Fletcher Building dropped 16c to 639, and Contact Energy slipped 4c to 574.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was down 29.35 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2669.45, having lost 12.5 points yesterday.

Other stocks to fall early included Sky City, down 7c to 286, Freightways down 6c to 265, Sky TV down 5c to 420, Mainfreight down 5c to 440, Tower down 3c to 129 and NZX down 3c to 685.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 3.6 percent to 7841.73, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index tumbled 4.3 percent to 832.39, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.89 percent to 1608.21.