NZ sharemarket ticks up as Wall St bulls charge

Fisher and Paykel Healthcare hit a record high and led the New Zealand sharemarket to a small gain, while Wall St kept striding ahead following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Thursday, January 23rd 2025, 6:54PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index traded between 12,997.44 and 13,092.68 before closing at 13,060.08, up 22.94 points or 0.18%.

Volumes were improved, with 27.36 million shares worth $111.51m changing hands, and there were 63 gainers and 79 decliners on the main board.

'A couple more downgrades'

Paul Robertshawe, chief investment officer with Octagon Asset Management, said the local market was choppy on low liquidity and lack of specific corporate news.

“The market is waiting for the reporting season, which is two weeks away – and maybe earnings won’t be quite as good as forecast. We might see a couple more downgrades.

“Looking back, some of the economic data has been worse than expected, and the start of the recovery seems to be taking longer than people first thought,” Robertshawe said.

In the United States, the S&P 500 hit a fresh record after gaining 0.61% to 6,086.37 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3% to 44,156.73 points, and the Nasdaq Composite increased 1.28% to 20,009.34.

Technology stocks were strong after Trump announced a US$500 billion (NZ$881.9b) artificial intelligence (AI) project called Stargate, with investment from the private sector.

A joint venture led by Open AI, Oracle, Softbank and MGX will build data centres and create more than 100,000 jobs over the next four years. Arm Holdings, Nvidia and Microsoft will provide the technology support.

Oracle rose 6.75% to US$184.22; Nvidia increased 4.43% to US$147.07; and Microsoft was 4.13% to US$446.2.

Local stocks

At home, Fisher and Paykel Healthcare climbed $1.02 or 2.66% to $39.32 on trade worth $19.47m. The share price just headed at $39.21 set on Nov 25.

Robertshawe said Fisher and Paykel will be benefitting from the weak NZ currency and a high flu season in the US, and “we will just have to wait and see whether the company will be subjected to 5%, 10% or 25% tariffs, or medical devices are excluded.”

The NZ dollar was steadily trading at US56.67c against the American greenback.

Vista Group was up 8c or 2.53% to $3.24; Serko gained 6c to $3.71; Channel Infrastructure increased 4c or 2.08% to $1.96; Air NZ added 1c to 61.5c; and Heartland Group collected 2c or 1.94% to $1.05.

Synlait Milk increased 1.5c or 3.7% to 42c; Steel & Tube gained 3c or 3.61% to 86c; Promisia Healthcare added 1c or 2.63% to 39c; and Cooks Coffee was up 1.5c or 5.66% to 28c.

Ebos Group, up 20c to $36.80, has appointed Grant Viney as chief executive of the Animal Care division, starting on Feb 1. Viney has been the executive general manager of Ebos-owned Masterpet.

Gentrack declined 32c or 2.59% to $12.03; Summerset Group fell 46c or 3.48% to $12.74; Spark was down 6c or 2% to $2.945; Freightways eased 12c to $10.59; and Chorus decreased 11c to $8.66.

Vulcan Steel fell 35c or 4.19% to $8; Restaurant Brands was down 10c or 2.44% to $4; Pacific Edge shed 0.003c or 5.17% to 5.5c; NZME eased 2c or 1.85% to $1.06; and PGG Wrightson declined 3c or 1.84% to $1.60.

In the energy sector, Meridian decreased 5c to $5.81; Mercury shed 4c to $6.06; and Contact was up 1c to $9.48.

Contact told the market it has renewed a contract with OMV for the supply of natural gas from the offshore Taranaki Pohokura field from January 2026 to December 2032 – the initial 12-month supply is forecast at 3.5 petajoules and declining after that.

The supply will support Contact’s two gas-peaking units at Stratford as well as retail customers. Contact’s supply contract with Maui ended in December.

In its December operating report, Contact had mass market electricity and gas sales of 274GWh compared with 279GWh in the same month in 2023. As of Jan 20, South Island controlled storage was 108% of the mean and North Island 123% of the mean.

Other decliners were Investore decreasing 2c or 1.74% to $1.13; Marsden Maritime Holdings down 6c or 1.82% to $3.4; CDL Investments easing 1.5c or 1.96% to 75c; Burger Fuel falling 3c or 8.22% to 33.5c; and General Capital down 1.5c or 5.88% to 24c.

Tower, up 1c to $1.275, announced that its chief financial officer, Paul Johnston, will take over as the interim chief executive when Blair Turnbull leaves on Feb 12.

Livestock Improvement Corporation increased 5c or 5.26% to $1 after reporting a 7.98% increase in revenue to $185.66m and a 34.83% rise in net profit for the six months ending November. The elite bull team is valued at $96.4m.

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels NZ, up 2c to $2.21, has settled the purchase of the 67-room Mayfair Hotel in Christchurch for $31.9m.

Tags: Market Close