Wellington, June 8 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket slipped in early trading as Contact Energy shares fell 2.6 percent after the company issued profit guidance.

Contact's shares were down 15c to 565 in the first few minutes after the market opened.

Earlier the company said it expected full year underlying earnings after tax to be 30 to 33 percent less than in the year to June 2008, due to lower than expected wholesale electricity prices.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was down 8.7 points to 2825.81, having risen 18.8 points on Friday.

Infratil shares rose 5c to 175 early, after the company said it had granted Australian private equity fund Archer Capital a call option over part of Infratil's shareholding in Brisbane-based Energy Developments.

The call option totals 19.99 percent of the shares of Energy Developments, in which Infratil has a 32.1 percent shareholding.

Leading stock Telecom eased 1c to 260 early, while Fletcher Building was down 5c to 690.

Sanford shares were up 6c to 570 on low volume, Property for Industry gained 2c to 117, Pike River Coal added 2c to 122, Rakon was up 2c to 158, and Sky City lifted 2c to 278.

Shares falling early included NZX, down 5c to 763, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare down 3c to 312, The Warehouse down 2c to 375, and NZ Oil & Gas down 2c to 160.

US stocks flip-flopped throughout Friday's (local time) session, with the major indexes ending split as investors paused to consider conflicting signals in monthly US jobs data.

The Labor Department reported that employers cut 345,000 jobs in May -- substantially less than analysts had forecast -- but the US unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent, its highest since 1983.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.2 percent to 8763.13, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 0.3 percent to 940.09, and the Nasdaq Composite Index dipped slightly to 1849.42.