NZ market jumps up ahead of Fed decision tomorrow

New Zealand’s benchmark index started strong on the first day of February, continuing the positive gains that the market made last month.

Wednesday, February 1st 2023, 6:09PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 index rose 123.2 points, or 1%, to 12,090.93. Across the main board, 41 stocks fell and 82 rose. Turnover was $135.8 million.

February is set to be a busy month, with the US Federal Reserve reporting on its latest rate hike tomorrow NZ time while the start of a new earnings season for NZ’s listed companies is just around the corner.

Forsyth Barr analysts appear to be leaning towards being more anxious than excited over NZ’s earnings season, writing in an earnings preview yesterday that they were approaching the looming earnings season “with a fair degree of anxious anticipation”.

“Will this earnings season be the catalyst for major downgrades? We are sceptical,” they wrote. “This is an unusual downturn even by NZ standards.”

New labour market data out today showed that while wage inflation was at record highs, the unemployment rate had a slight increase.

This had some economists asking whether the Reserve Bank of NZ will lift rates by 50 basis points this month as opposed to 75 bps already flagged.

Hamilton Hindin Greene’s Grant Davies said the employment rate uptick suggested that the brake the central bank had been putting on the economy with the rising interest rates was “starting to take effect”.

He said the market ending the day up 1% was following in the US markets’ footsteps overnight and helped NZ tech stocks get a boost today.

Serko had the biggest jump and was up 8.3% to $2.75 by early evening. Vista Group rose 2.1% to $1.48 and Pacific Edge was up 2% to 51 cents. Rakon edged up 2% to $1.04.

Healthcare manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare also helped push the index into positive territory, rising 2.6% to $25.92. Fletcher Building rose 3.6% to $5.25 and energy gentailer Mercury also had a good day, jumping 3.9% to $6.23.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ebos Group was down 2.1% to $42.10, and Briscoe Group fell 2.5% to $4.61.

Vital Healthcare Property Trust also slipped, down 1.9% to $2.35, and Kiwi Property Group fell 1.1% to 94.5 cents.

Data from the NZX today confirmed that investors had moved away from high- to low-risk investments in 2022 as share trading fell over 30% last year.

The total value of shares traded on the NZX fell by 31% in 2022 to $37.4 billion.

Today, the NZ dollar was at US cents by 64.33 at 3pm in Wellington, edging slightly down from 64.68 US cents at the same time yesterday.

Kiwibank economists said the reaction towards the labour market update reflected the “slightly softer” data, while the NZ dollar was pushed a little lower and wholesale interest rates lost ground.

Tags: Market Close