A2 helps NZ shares play catch up

New Zealand shares played catch up today with share markets overseas which have been running ahead. A2 Milk lead the charge as it rallied from a low.

Thursday, April 8th 2021, 6:16PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 145 points, or 1.2%, to 12,632.60. Within the index, 30 stocks rose, 12 fell, and eight were unchanged. Turnover was $186.5 million.

“The New Zealand market, as a rule, has been underperforming, so we were probably due a bit of catch up,” said Grant Davies, an investment advisor at Hamilton Hindin Greene.

The benchmark index is still down 3.7% from the start of the year.

Dairy marketing company A2 Milk climbed 3.9% to $8.89 rebounding from a three-year low yesterday at $8.42.

The company has been struggling with the disruption to its daigou (personal shopper) export channel which historically brought a lot of its product into China.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare had a second strong day, up 3.6% at $33.60, and Tourism Holdings extended its rally in the wake of the trans-Tasman bubble being announced earlier this week.

Stock market operator NZX rose 1.5% to $2.09 after tightening its guidance range to be between $32m and $35.5m.

Investore Property announced a $57.5m, or 5.9%, valuation increase for its property portfolio in the six months ended March. However, its share price fell half a percent to $2.07.

Davies said investors were already factoring valuation upgrades into property stocks’ share price.

“All of those property stocks are trading at a decent premium to their property valuation,” he said.

Savor Group jumped 9.7% to 22.5 cents after completing the acquisition of three high-profile Britomart restaurants, including Amano.

“The share price has been tracking well since they divested from Moa, so obviously there are not too many shareholders jumping ship,” Davies said.

The New Zealand dollar briefly dipped below 70 US cents overnight but quickly recovered and was trading at 70.31 US cents at 5pm in Wellington, down from 70.56 cents yesterday.

The trade-weighted index was at 73.86 at 5pm, from 74.02 yesterday. The kiwi traded at 92.06 Australian cents from 92.18, 77.01 yen from 77.47 yen, 59.20 euro cents from 59.44 cents, 51.07 British pence from 51.05 pence, and 4.6004 Chinese yuan from 4.6153 yuan.

Tags: Market Close