Property stocks weaker as market rises slightly

Property stocks edged down in New Zealand's market today even though data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (Reinz) today indicated house prices appear to be stabilising.

Tuesday, November 15th 2022, 6:09PM

by BusinessDesk

Reinz’s national house price index gained 0.2% from September – but sales volumes fell by more than a third or 34.7% from October last year.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 7.2 points, or 0.1%, to 11,239.14. Turnover was $151.7 million.

Greg Smith, head of retail at Devon Funds, said NZ's market was in a “bit of a pause” as investors waited to see what happened at the G20 summit.

“Investors are waiting to see what comes out of that,” he said. “There are some big issues on the table like if they put pressure on Russia to pull out.

“Ukraine is trying to ease up on its tariffs and there’ll also be discussion around Chinese-US relations,” he said.

Kiwi Property Group was down by 2.8% to 86.5 cents and PGG Wrightson edged down 1.4% to $4.21. Investore Property fell 1.3% to $1.48.

Fletcher Building on the other hand rose 2% to $5.11.

Infrastructure investment company Infratil announced today that its share of its investee companies’ operating profit had jumped 11% in the first half. This reflected strong performances from CDC Data Centres, Vodafone, and Wellington Airport.

Smith said Infratil’s results were positive “across the board” and the stock edged up 0.2% to $8.41.

Healthcare manufacturer and index heavyweight Fisher and Paykel Healthcare increased 0.9% to $19.60, recovering some of yesterday's 2.6% decline.

Logistics firm Mainfreight continued to decline, falling 3.4% to $70.05.

Tourism Holdings said yesterday Apollo shareholders approved the merger between the two tourism entities. The deal remains subject to approval by the supreme court of Queensland, as well as the completion of the deal with budget campervan firm Jucy.

THL was down 2.2% to $3.59. Cancer diagnostics company Pacific Edge jumped 5.5% to 48 cents, bouncing back from yesterday's decline when it fell more than 3%.

Jarden analysts said A2 Milk’s access into the US infant formula market will be of interest at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Friday as will how it fared at the 11:11 Singles Day sales festival.

“Our initial analysis suggests A2 Milk's performance is likely to be solid across this year's festival and on plan for the company,” said Jarden director of equity research Adrian Allbon said.

A2 Milk rose 0.8% to $6.47 today, while Synlait Milk increased 2.4% to $2.97.

Seafood company Sanford said it will resume paying a dividend after a two-year hiatus even though its earnings hadn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels because covid-19 still had a “sting in its tail”.

Sanford was unchanged at $4.20.

Today, the NZ dollar traded at 60.90 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, down from 61.10 cents yesterday.

ASB’s Nathaniel Keall said in a note that speakers at the US Federal Reserve recently struck “very different tones” about what the Fed will do next in coming months.

Keall said Fed governor Christopher Waller poured “cold water” on speculation the Fed might consider a change of tack, instead emphasising it still had some way to go before inflation was under control.

ASB's Keall said Federal Reserve vice chair Lael Brainard went in the other direction with her comments, saying the federal open market committee was mindful about the impact higher interest rates have on the labour market and that a slower pace of increases would be appropriate soon.

Tags: Market Close