Wellington, March 30 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket started the week with a fall, following equities in the United States down.

Leading shares were at the forefront of today's early decline with Contact Energy giving up 15c to 600, Fletcher Building down 10c to 630 and Telecom down 2c to 226.

Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was down 17.19 points to 2636.28, following a 37.2-point gain on Friday.

After a strong second half to last week, Sky TV was up 4c early to 419, following a Forsyth Barr research report which described the company as "recession-resistant" and indicated the shares were at a bargain price.

The few other shares to rise early included Pike River Coal, up 3c to 89, Cavalier Corp up 2c to 175, and Rakon up 2c to 130.

Among the stocks that fell early were Sky City, which dropped 3c to 287, Tower 2c to 134, Nuplex 2c to 87, Ebos Group 2c to 473, Air NZ 2c to 92, and Steel & Tube 2c to 260.

In the US, Wall Street capped a strong week on a down note on Friday (local time) as investors booked profits in the wake of the recent upward surge and bank shares dropped after bank executives indicated March had been a tougher month for the industry than the previous two.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.9 percent to 7776.18, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index shed 2 percent to 815.94, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 2.6 percent to 1545.20.

For the week, the blue-chip index rose 6.8 percent, the S&P 500 gained 6.2 percent and the Nasdaq rose 6 percent.

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