NZ sharemarket ends week up 0.5%
The New Zealand sharemarket ended the week with a 0.5% rise, but the threat of Trump tariffs again reared its head, affecting Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
Friday, January 31st 2025, 7:01PM
by BusinessDesk
The S&P/NZX 50 Index bounced back in the afternoon and closed at 12,995.01, up 66.63 points or 0.52% after reaching a morning low of 12,906.03.
The index declined more than 0.2% for the week and has now fallen nearly 1% for the year.
Volumes were healthy, with 32.32 million shares worth $143.82m changing hands.
Trump tarrifs
Shane Solly, portfolio manager with Harbour Asset Management, said it was a better day after a volatile week, and all eyes were on US tariff announcements.
President Donald Trump said he would follow through with a 25% tariff on imported goods from Mexico and Canada on Feb 1. But he hadn’t yet decided on whether oil from those countries would be included.
Trump said the move was aimed at addressing the large numbers of undocumented migrants and the fentanyl that came across US borders, as well as trade deficits with its neighbours. He was also planning new tariffs on China but did not give details.
Solly said if the tariffs were implemented, the cost of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s products into the US would increase – “by how much we don’t know, and the company has suggested it will look at changing the manufacturing mix and where it goes to”.
Solly said products from NZ could go to the US, and manufactured goods from Mexico could go elsewhere.
“Tariffs have weighed on Fisher & Paykel in the last week or so.”
Local stocks
Market leader Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 23c to $37.60 on trade worth $28.23m.
ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence decreased 4 points to 96.0 in January, with falls across most questions in the survey.
ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said the proportion of households thinking it’s a good time to buy a major household item is well off its lows and likely still trending higher.
But this month’s fall is a reminder that the environment for retailers is likely to remain patchy and challenging for some time yet.
“Household inflation expectations have been very stable recently, but recent increases in petrol prices do highlight the risk that they will start to rise again. The economy is typically a slow ship to turn," she said.
Ebos Group reached a 19-month high after gaining 80c or 2.04% to $40; Meridian Energy was up 7c to $5.90; a2 Milk added 12c or 1.9% to $6.44; Gentrack collected 20c to $12.71; and Infratil increased 26c or 2.37% to $11.21.
Solly said the Microsoft result showed there was still significant demand for data centres when they said they couldn’t get enough data centre capacity. Infratil, with a 48% shareholding in CDC Data Centres, recovered as people questioned what the DeepSeek disruption would mean.
Skellerup was up 10c or 2% to $5.09; Port of Tauranga gained 13c or 2.04% to $6.50; Vista Group rose 14c or 4.52% to $3.24 as US movie box office numbers increased; Vector collected 9c or 2.34% to $3.94; and Mainfreight added 63c to $72.
AFT Pharmaceuticals increased 7c or 2.55% to $2.82; NZME gained 2c or 1.89% to $1.08; Air NZ added 1c to 63c; Santana Minerals was up 2.5c or 4.67% to 56c; and Green Cross Health improved 2c or 2.63% to 78c.
Vulcan Steel gained 15c or 1.93% to $7.94, and General Capital continued the climb, increasing 4c or 14.29% to 32c after sitting at 18.5c on Jan 9.
Sky TV declined 10c or 3.45% to $2.80; Smartpay was down 1.5c or 2.83% to 51.5c; Pacific Edge decreased 0.003 or 4.84% to 5.9c.
Colonial Motor Co, unchanged at $6.30, told the market that it expects gross profit to fall about 20% for the six months ending December compared with the previous corresponding period.
Colonial said the decline was not as significant as expected, and while December was a strong trading month, it is too early to comment on whether that was an aberration or a sign of some level of market recovery.
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