Market commentaries

WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares gained in heavy turnover as Xero dropped on leaving the benchmark index, while Comvita and Contact Energy gained.

The S&P/NZX50 Index rose 0.4%, or 37.11 points, to 8360.86. Within the index, 36 rose, 11 fell and three were unchanged. Turnover was $426 million.

Comvita was the best performer, up 7.3% to $7.99, while Contact Energy gained 4.5% to $5.78 and CBL Corp rose 3.6% to $3.14.

James Smalley, investment adviser at Hamilton Hindin Greene, said property stocks have gained recently, with Argosy Property up 1.9% to $1.10, Kiwi Property gaining 1.4% to $1.4A05 , Precinct Properties gaining 0.8% to $1.35 and Investore Property advancing 0.7% to $1.46.

‘‘Compared to a stock like A2 they don’t have great ups and downs, but as a sector they have been going up,’’ Smalley said. ‘‘We’ve had a number of really chunky redemptions lately and people have been hunting around even more so for that yield story. That has maybe been underpinning volumes through the market as of late. There’s a lot of money sloshing around looking for a bit of yield.’’

Xero dropped 4.4% to $28.20. The stock was removed from the NZX50 index yesterday, but remains on the main board until January 31. It saw over $110 million in turnover today.

‘‘It’s continuing to be affected by gradual deweighting of holdings,’’ Mr Smalley said.

A2 Milk dipped 2.3% to $7.76 and Metro Performance Glass fell 2% to 97c.

Outside the benchmark index,Trilogy International rose 22.9% to $2.79. Chinese investment manager CITIC Capital Partners, which oversees $US4.7 billion of assets, has offered $211 million to buy Trilogy at $2.90 per share, a 28% premium.

Aucklandbased Trilogy said it had entered a scheme of arrangement with CITIC Capital to sell the shares, which closed Thursday at $2.27 but peaked at $5 in August 2016. The Business Bakery, which holds 31.2% of shares on issue, intends to sell if the board recommends the deal.

Smartpay Holdings dropped 8.7% to 21c. Australian investment firm Pemba Capital Partners will not go ahead with plans to buy payment terminal provider Smartpay for $40.4 million after wrapping up due diligence. The Sydneybased firm put forward an indicative offer of 23.5c a share in August and was granted due diligence access last month, but yesterday ended its pursuit of the payments company.

The Australian sharemarket closed lower, driven by falls in banking and utilities stocks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 stock index was down 14.3 points, or 0.24%, at 5997 points.

Morgans senior private client adviser Bill Chatterton said the market was lacklustre as investors started to wind down before Christmas.

The big four banks were all in the red. Commonwealth Bank was down 0.6% to $79.94, National Australia Bank, which held its annual general meeting yesterday, shed 0.4% to $29.69, Westpac fell 0.6% to $31.37 and ANZ dropped by nearly 1% to $28.22.

The broader All Ordinaries index was down 9.3 points, or 0.15%, at 6087.1 points.

The SPI200 futures contract was down eight points, or 0.13%, at 6005 points.

National turnover was 3.4 billion securities traded, worth $8.8 billion. — BusinessDesk/AAP

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