Wellington, July 19 NZPA - The New Zealand sharemarket tumbled in early trading, with Fletcher Building down 1 percent to a five-month low, after equities dived in the United States on Friday (local time).

Around 10.25am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 15.5 points to 2970.26 after falling 16.6 points on Friday.

Fletcher Building shares fell 8c early to 754, while Fisher & Paykel Healthcare shares fell 6c or 2 percent to 296, their lowest level in nearly nine months.

Contact Energy was down 5c early to 569, Hellaby Holdings lost 3c to 167, NZ Oil & Gas fell 3c to 122, Restaurant Brands was down 3c to 230, and Telecom slipped 1c to 188.

Shares in NZ Farming Systems Uruguay were untraded early after Singapore's Olam International launched a takeover bid at 55c a share for the 81.55 percent of the company it does not own. Farming Systems shares closed at 41c on Friday.

Port of Tauranga gained 5c early to 690, while Ebos Group lifted 3c to 638.

In the US, dismal consumer sentiment data and anaemic revenues from GE and two big banks slammed stocks on Friday.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2.5 percent to 10,097.90, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 2.9 percent to 1064.88, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 3.1 percent to 2179.05.

For the week, the Dow fell 1 percent, while the S&P 500 dropped 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq gave up 0.8 percent.