Wellington, April 23 NZPA - A near 2 percent decline in Fletcher Building shares helped pull the New Zealand sharemarket down in early trading today.

Fletcher was down 12c to 615 soon after opening, while among other leading shares Contact Energy was unchanged on 570 and Telecom was down 1c to 253.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was down 8.94 points to 2654, having closed down 1.9 points yesterday.

Sky City was up 3c early to 282, having lost 6c yesterday after reporting it had raised $185.3 million by selling shares at 261 each in an institutional placement.

The few other shares to rise early today included Sky TV, which gained 3c to 409 on low volume, and Tower which added 4c to 134.

Among stocks to fall early were NZX, down 6c to 680, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare down 3c to 300, Freightways down 3c to 265, and Nuplex down 3c to 33.

Stocks to lose 2c early included ING Medical Properties to 112, Methven to 111, Property for Industry to 110, and Rakon to 133.

In the United States, the Dow and S&P fell after Morgan Stanley revived concerns about the banking sector and the wider economy after it posted its second straight quarterly loss and slashed its dividend.

The Nasdaq, however, eked out a gain after AT&T reported a profit that fell less than expected, and an analyst said its iPhone partnership with Apple Inc is starting to help rather than hurt profits, lifting tech shares.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 1 percent to 7886.57, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 0.8 percent to 843.55, and the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.1 percent to 1646.12.

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