F&P Healthcare breaks five day market decline

The NZX 50 edged up today as Fisher & Paykel Healthcare broke its five-day decline and oil prices sank 7% overnight.

Tuesday, March 29th 2022, 8:59PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 9.9 points, or 0.08%, to 11974.98. Turnover was $157.6 million, a significant drop, and a return to average, from yesterday’s $349.8m.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare's shares rose for the first time after a few rocky days following its warning the market annual revenue would be down by about 13% last week. The stock was up 1.4% to $23.80.

Greg Smith, head of retail at Devon Funds, said investors were currently trying to establish if some value had emerged with F&P Healthcare as the “covid-19 tailwinds start to dissipate”.

Eroad shares continued yesterday's lift, rising 3.1% to $4.03, thanks to its three-year debt facility announcement with ANZ and Bank of NZ.

Mieneke Perniske, a trader at Kiwibank, said the main themes driving the market today had been treasury yields in the United States, which was affecting yields in New Zealand at the moment.

“Off the back of that, the focus is still on Russia and Ukraine, so that tends to add some risk aversion to markets every other day,” she said.

Perniske said the market had been in a very much “push and pull” sequence of risk appetite followed by risk-off mode since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Air NZ shares rose 1.1% to $1.40 after falling yesterday when the airliner announced that it would claim up to $180m from the government’s $250m extension to cargo support scheme to help maintain air freight capacity through the pandemic.

The national carrier is expected to soon announce details of its planned capital raising, which analysts are estimating could be around the $1 billion mark.

Synlait expectations

Telecommunications company Vital Limited took the biggest hit on the index today, falling 6.3% to $0.30. Synlait Milk also struggled, falling 3.3% to $3.21 ahead of its half-year results being revealed this Friday.

Smith said Synlait’s results for the six months ending January 31 were the most “keenly awaited results” to come out this week.

“Dairy prices have come off their highs and there will be plenty of interest from the market,” he said.

ANZ jumped 1% to $30.25 after a review ordered by the RBNZ of ANZ's directors' attestation framework found the bank took “appropriate steps” to remedy the concerns raised in a 2019 report.

Steel & Tube Holdings rose 3.3% to $1.55 and Ebos was up 1% to $40.38, with the healthcare and animal products firm’s announcement yesterday about its approval from Australia’s antitrust regulator to buy LifeHealthcare giving the company a boost today.

Hallenstein Glasson shares rose 1.5% to $6.59 and Michael Hill shares were also up 2.4% to $1.29, with both companies recovering slightly from recent losses.

Retirement village operator Ryman Healthcare also rose 1% to $9.20.

Perniske said the NZ dollar had headed a “bit lower” over the day and the NZD/AUD was also down, which she said was due to pressure from the Ukraine invasion.

“We've seen a huge lift in commodity prices, particularly oil, and that's getting a lot of volatility,” she said.

“Oil went down overnight by about 7% and there are concerns around demand in China decreasing because they've had a huge spike in covid cases – that's adding some downside to oil prices.”

The NZ dollar was trading at 68.92 US cents at 3pm in Wellington from 68.72 cents last week. The trade-weighted index was at 74.28 from 74.01 last week.

Tags: Market Close