Market commentaries

WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares hit another record, rounding out the week with a 3.5% gain, led higher by Kathmandu Holdings and New Zealand Refining Company.

The S&P/NZX50 Index gained 0.4%, or 38.93 points, to 8938.45. Within the index, 26 stocks rose, 15 fell and nine were unchanged. Turnover was $109 million.

‘‘This market’s performance is relentless, and it’s good to see,’’ Greg Easton, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners, said.

‘‘It’s come in stocks where there has been no recent news — like Ryman or Fisher & Paykel Healthcare — just all of a sudden they’ve decided to go and trade at alltime highs.

‘‘The electricity sector has gained a lot of favour over the last couple of weeks, whether

that’s a followthrough from the realisation of just yields were too good,’’ Mr Easton said.

‘‘It’s very evident that term deposit rates aren’t increasing so maybe everyone’s just decided to put more into shares. Generally lowerrisk companies have had the best performance this week.’’

Leading the gainers was Kathmandu, up 3% to $2.40, NZ Refining up 2.4% to $2.58 and Synlait Milk gaining 2% to $10.98.

Ryman Healthcare rose 1.5% to $12.23 and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was up 0.4% to $14.48.

to $5.60. Comvita The was stock the has worst been performer, dropping down since 3.5% May

21, when the honey products exporter said it had pulled out of talks with an unnamed third party seeking to take it over as it could not reach a deal on price. The share price has fallen 17% since then.

‘‘Ever since then, the shares have traded down — there had been quite a bit of bad news about a bad honey season, myrtle rust and how that will affect them, then the due diligence pushed the shares up but now they’ve popped back down again,’’ Mr Easton said. Air New Zealand dipped 0.8% to $3.19 and Arvida Group declined 0.8% to $1.29. Sanford fell 0.1% to $7.71. New Zealand’s largest listed seafood company has appointed Katherine Turner as its new chief financial officer. Stuart Houliston will continue as acting CFO until Ms Turner joins Sanford in September. Outside the benchmark index, SeaDragon was unchanged at 0.4c. The fish oil manufacturer expects its loss to narrow in the coming year as it works to secure more cash to fund longerterm growth . It has forecast a net loss after tax of how big a deal the Tiwai extension is or just that between $3.6 million and $4.55 million in the year March 31, 2019, an improvement from the $6.1 million loss in its 2018 financial year. The Australian sharemarket lost ground on low trading volumes as investors hold fire ahead of the imminent G7 meeting in Canada. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 12.1 points, or 0.2% at 6045.2, while the broader All Ordinaries index was 12.6 points, or 0.2% weaker, at 6156.8 points. Energy stocks performed well after worries about supply from Venezuela hiked oil prices, with Origin Energy gaining 0.9% to $9.94, Oil Search adding 0.7% to $8.38 and Woodside Petroleum advancing 0.7% to $33.48. Industrials was the worstperforming sector, with rail freight operator Aurizon Holdings falling 4.2% to a twoyear low of $4.14, while Transurban Group retreated 0.8% to $11.67. —