NZX 50 jumps 1% as dairy stocks rally

A2 Milk and Synlait led the New Zealand share market higher as the two embattled dairy stocks mounted a small recovery after hitting four-year lows.

Tuesday, May 4th 2021, 6:33PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 143.35 points, or 1.1%, to 12,912.19. Within the index, nine stocks fell, 29 rose and 12 were unchanged.

Infant formula exporter A2 Milk was the index’s best performer today, surging 3.4% to $7.99. Even so, the stock is still trading at prices last seen in 2018 after having fallen almost 40% this year.

The exporter was reliant on informal cross border resellers, called the daigou, to move product into China. This channel has been crippled by pandemic-era border restrictions which are preventing movement in and out of Australia.

A2 supplier Synlait Milk has been dragged down with its key customer – the stock is now down about 35% year-to-date, even after bouncing 3% to $3.39 today.

Mainfreight climbed another 2.2%, hitting $75 per share after rallying 7.5% in the past five days. Forsyth Barr analysts have said they expect the stock may outperform expectations when it reports full-year earnings at the end of May.

The brokerage firm noted there has been a strong recovery in freight and logistics markets as seen in recent upbeat reporting from global peers.

Domestic logistics firm Freightways didn’t get the same favourable look from investors, it declined marginally to $11.15.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is also tipped to have a strong earnings report and rose half a percent to $35.54 today. It is the largest stock on the index.

Pacific Edge declined 0.9% to $1.14. The cancer diagnostics firm today said it had appointed former Goldman Sachs investment banker Mark Green as an independent director.

Travel booking software firm Serko had the day’s biggest decline, dropping 1.4% to $6.90 after a few strong days of trading. The stock is up 20.2% year-to-date.

Westpac Bank saw a similar decline as investors took some profit after it rallied 5% yesterday on a strong earnings result. Today, it consolidated at $28.03, down 0.9%.

Minnow business software investor Enprise Group was asked to confirm it was meeting its continuous disclosure requirements after its share price leapt more than 20% to $1.58.

Market regulator NZ RegCo asks companies to confirm they are not concealing sensitive information when share prices see large, unexpected movements. Big swings are more common in small, less frequently traded stocks.

The kiwi dollar was trading 71.84 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, up from 71.73 cents yesterday.

The trade-weighted index was at 75.01 at 3pm, from 74.96 yesterday. The kiwi traded at 92.79 Australian cents from 92.88 cents, 78.47 yen from 78.49 yen, 59.63 euro cents from 59.64 cents, 51.74 British pence from 51.88 pence, and 4.6491 Chinese yuan from 4.6417 yuan.

Tags: Market Close