Market commentaries
WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares gained, with Gentrack Group hitting a record and electricity companies Mercury New Zealand and Contact Energy gaining.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 58.27 points, or 0.7%, to 8494.24. Within the index, 27 stocks rose, 13 fell and 10 were unchanged. Turnover was $146.6 million.
A2 Milk led the index higher, up 3.5% to $12.54, with Spark New Zealand rising 2.3% to $3.53 and Kathmandu Holdings up 1.9% to $2.66.
Gentrack rose 2.9% to $7.40, its eighth day of gains in a row.
‘‘They’re just kicking goals, they’ve put on the best part of $1 in just over a week and noone’s wanting to sell it. They’re executing on their strategy and everyone wants a piece of it,’’ said Greg Easton, investment adviser at Craigs Invest ment Partners. ‘‘It’s a quality stock that has been left behind and is presenting some relative value compared to the broader market.’’
Mercury New Zealand rose 1.4% to $3.23. The electricity generator and retailer will spend as much as $50 million buying back some of its shares, enabling it to return capital to shareholders and rebalance its capital structure. Mercury will buy up to 20 million ordinary shares on the NZX main board between May 7 and June 30, which will be held as treasury stock. Mr Easton said the news was a good sign of confidence from the board.
Contact Energy was up 0.9% to $5.48 and Genesis Energy rose 0.9% to $2.30. Meridian Energy was unchanged at $2.975.
Yesterday, Meridian, Genesis and Contact rose on news that Meridian has signed a contract with New Zealand Aluminium Smelters to agree the price of electricity for an additional 50 MWh per hour (438 GW hours per year) at Tiwai Point in Southland.
The contract, underwritten by Meridian and supported by contracts with Contact, Genesis and Mercury, runs until December 2022 and facilitates NZAS restarting its fourth potline and increasing production by 9.2%.
Fletcher Building rose 0.7% to $6.24. The company completed the institutional component of its $750 million capital raise earlier this month, generating gross proceeds of $515 million, and the retail component of Fletcher’s capital raise opened on April 23 and closes on May 11.
A fourth straight day of gains has taken the Australian sharemarket to its highest level in two months.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 gained 0.6% to 6050.2 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index was up 0.6% at 6136.7 points.
Bell Direct equities analyst Julia Lee said the share market’s recent good run continued yesterday due to the Australian dollar’s fall, a rally in growth stocks and gains by the banks.
Software maker Xero gained 3.4% to $39.50, A2Milk rose 3.8% to $11.70 and baby formula supplier Bellamy’s Australia was 0.8% higher at $18.59.
The SPI200 futures contract was up 45 points, or 0.75%, at 6038 points.
National turnover was 3.7 billion securities traded worth $7 billion. The spot price of gold in Sydney at 1700 AEST was $US1309.60 per fine ounce, from $US1311.00 per fine ounce on Tuesday. — BusinessDesk/AAP