Tourism Holdings and inflation updates drive movement

The New Zealand sharemarket fell today as the reporting season ended, with the market now beholden to ongoing international impacts.

Thursday, April 17th 2025, 6:32PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index closed up 0.42% or 51.07 points, rising to 12,118.99, with 38 million shares changing hands to the value of $115.1m.

The S&P/NZX20 index closed at 7,201.19, up 0.39%, while the S&P/NZX10 index closed at 1,831.27, up 0.27%.

There were 78 gainers on the main board and 54 decliners.

Tourism woes

The story of the day was with Tourism Holdings (THL), which in an update to the NZX said that its net profit after tax for the 2025 financial year will be “significantly under” the current analyst consensus of $45.2m.

THL reported a decline, with its share price falling by 11.18% to $1.43, down 18c with 2.3m shares trading hands to the value of $3.2m.

Devon Funds Management head of retail Greg Smith said that THL could be one of the most directly impacted shares of the US tariffs.

“It just highlights the repercussions that America is seeing from effectively declaring a tariff war on the rest of the world,” Smith said.

“They said Europe was down 40 to 50% on last year, which is detrimental to them. Tourism is probably, definitely, the most affected industry to date.”

Spark also had a lot of movement today, with its share price rising by 1.94% to $2.10, up 4c with 8.6m shares trading hands to the value of $18m.

“Obviously, it’s been a shocker this year for them really, but Spark suffered from a very weak domestic economy on a number of fronts, and possibly there’s some optimism over them being able to ride if you like the economic recovery.”

Inflation rises

Stats NZ released its update to the consumer price index inflation figures, with the rate increasing to 2.5% in the 12 months to the March 2025 quarter.

Smith said that the result shouldn’t dissuade the Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) from cutting rates in future.

“Inflation picked up to 2.5%, and even though it’s up on where it was in the December quarter, it’s still in that 1-3% band, and there was some good positive news on rent inflation, which has been a source of inflation.”

Other shares that were boosted following the inflation rate announcement included Kiwi Property Group and Precinct Properties.

Kiwi Property Group had its share price rise by 2.38% to $0.86, up 2c with 1.78m shares trading hands to the value of $1.5m.

Precinct Properties had its share price rise by 2.35% to $1.09, down 2.5c with 2.5m shares trading hands valued at $2.7m.

Looking ahead to the three-day week, Smith said to look out for consumer confidence numbers and any more news regarding tariffs out of the US.

Wall Street traders were back in sell-off mode Wednesday while the dollar fell further as downcast comments from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell added to weakness in semiconductor giant Nvidia.

After a relatively peaceful couple of days on markets following tariff-related volatility last week, investors were once again on the defensive. Gold, a safe-haven asset in times of uncertainty, climbed above US$3,300 (NZ$5,590) an ounce for the first time.

“Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation,” Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago, warning that the inflationary effects “could also be more persistent”.

US stocks hit session lows shortly after Powell’s comments before recovering a bit in the final minutes of trading.

The Dow closed down 1.7% at 39,669.39, while the S&P 500 also closed down 2.2% at 5,275.70.

Nasdaq finished down 3.1%, closing at 16,307.16.

– Additional reporting AFP

Tags: Market Close