NZ shares retreat from rally

New Zealand's main index today gave back half of yesterday’s rally as investors waited for a raft of central bank meetings and key data releases.

Tuesday, December 14th 2021, 7:02PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 64 points, or 0.5%, to 12,929.59. Turnover was $223 million. With Christmas creeping ever closer and most corporate news done for the year, local markets are tracking the moves of global counterparts. Wall Street indices dropped around 1% overnight having bounced on Friday night after inflation data was not as scary as many feared. Sentiment on omicron continues to waver, an Oxford study confirmed vaccines are less effective against the variant – but the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it appears to cause less severe illness to start with. Some of the stocks with the largest declines were ones that made strong gains yesterday. SkyCity Entertainment fell 3.2% to $3.07, Mainfreight dropped 2.4% to $92.69, and Fonterra Shareholders' Fund Units were down 2.3% at $3.75. Travel stocks fell, with Air New Zealand down 1.6% at $1.56 – despite getting an extra $500m government debt facility – and Serko falling 1.6% to $6.89. Tourism Holdings was unchanged at $3.14. Forsyth Barr’s head of research gave its acquisition of Apollo Tourism & Leisure his approval and bumped the stock's target price up to $3.60. “The deal is very attractive for both financial and strategic reasons,” Andy Bowley said in a note. The analyst estimated the deal could add more than 75 cents of value per share and lead to more efficient usage of the combined fleet of RVs. “However, the deal is subject to competition agency clearance in both New Zealand and Australia, which shouldn't be seen as a foregone conclusion,” he said. Shares in Plexure Group jumped almost 10% to 51 cents after it announced it would cut 55 jobs and $8m from its wage bill. The payment platform and mobile marketing business is pivoting its operations toward its newly acquired Task business, which has a stronger sales pipeline than Plexure. Sky Network Television continued to rally after completing its own cost-cutting exercise. It rose another 4% to $2.62 today and is now up 50% in the past week. Dual-listed Vulcan Steel also gained despite the falling market, up 1% at $9.37, after Forsyth Barr initiated coverage of the stock with an outperform rating. The debut research note said the stock was trading at a discount to other comparable businesses despite having better finances and growth outlook. The NZ dollar surrendered what it had gained this week as investors lost their nerve. The currency fell to 67.48 US cents today, down from 67.96 cents yesterday. Ok “Safe-haven currencies carried the day on Monday, buoyed by a definitive fall in risk sentiment across equities and currencies,” OFX said in a note. The currency exchange said new covid infections in Europe and fears the omicron variant could again derail the global economic recovery was hurting markets.

Tags: Market Close