NZ sharemarket breaks seven days of declines

The New Zealand sharemarket had a welcome gain as stocks on Wall Street rebounded strongly, and business confidence picked up locally.

Tuesday, October 31st 2023, 6:48PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index did have a late fall and closed at 10,757.69, up 16.12 points or 0.15% and stemming seven successive days of falls.

The index had fallen into correction territory, declining more than 10% from the July 31 high of 12,056.15. The market is down 6.1% for the year to date.

There were 63 gainers and 71 decliners over the whole market on improved volumes of 31.11 million share transactions worth $109.96m.

Mark Lister, investment director with Craigs Investment Partners, said it was good to see the market have a positive day, as it’s been a while.

“We have suffered a correction and are heading for our third negative year in a row. With a bit of luck, we might see some stability on the market, and November and December have traditionally been the best months of the year,” Lister said.

The ANZ Business Outlook showed business confidence up 21 points to plus 23 and expected own activity increased 12 points to plus 23 in October – the highest level since mid-2017 when coincidentally, National was the government.

“It gives us confidence that economic activity is holding up well,” said Lister.

In the United States, the S&P 500 came out of correction territory after rising 1.2% to 4166.82 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 511 points or 1.58% to 32,928.96 – its best day since June 2 – and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.16% to 12,789.48.

Gold fell back below US$2,000 (NZ$3,431) to US$1994.5 an ounce, the US 10-year Treasury Note yield eased to 4.89%, and the NZ dollar was slightly higher against the American greenback at US58.31c.

NZ market bounces

On the local market, Mainfreight recovered 94c to $57.24; Ebos Group was up 71c or 2.07% to $34.99; Mercury Energy increased 17c or 2.97% to $5.90; and Chorus added 9c to $7.175.

Serko rose 18c or 4.48% to $4.20; Restaurant Brands increased 12c or 3.3% to $3.76; Napier Port gained 8c or 3.72% to $2.23; and My Food Bag was up 0.009c or 6.92% to 13.9c.

Skellerup Holdings was down 17c or 2.3.62% to $4.52; The Warehouse declined 3c to $1.72; 2 Cheap Cars fell 4c or 5.06% to 75c; and Accordant Group decreased 5c or 4.35% to $1.10.

In the property sector, Stride increased 6c or 4.62% to $1.36; Goodman Trust was up 4c or 2.03% to $2.01; Precinct gained 3.5c or 3.26% to $1.11; Property for Industry was down 4c or 1.86% to $2.11; and Kiwi shed 2.5c or 3.13% to 77.5c.

Tourism Holdings was down 11c or 3.28% to $3.24; Smartpay declined 7c or 5.11% to $1.20; and NZME decreased 3c or 3.49% to 83c.

Retirement village operator Arvida Group, which restructured its bank debt facilities with an increased limit of $775m, declined 7c or 5.83% to $1.13.

Rakon increased 5c or 7.69% to 70c after launching its latest semiconductor chip, Niku, as it moves to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) portfolio. The chip will help drive AI workloads at data centres.

South Port gained 5c to $7.30 after the port company lowered its full-year earnings guidance to about $9m compared with a net profit of $11.71m for the 2023 financial year. Trade volumes were down 10% for the first quarter compared with the same period last year.

Seafood company Sanford declined 9c or 2.34% to $3.76 after telling the market it has completed the sale of its North Island inshore species quota to Moana NZ.

Tags: Market Close