Market commentaries
WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares fell yesterday as Brexit worries and a lack of earnings news left investors with a lack of direction. Three top50 stocks also went exdividend.
The S&P/NZX 50 index fell 16.19 points, or 0.2%, to 8809.70. Within the index, 23 stocks fell, five were unchanged and 22 rose. Turnover was modest at $90.1 million.
US stocks rose as investors bet that the risks of slower growth were fully priced in after five days of declines. The political fallout increased in the UK over the draft Brexit deal, while mixed signals continued on the prospects of meaningful trade talks between the US and China in Argentina at the end of the month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8% and the S&P 500 Index rose 1.1%. In Australia, the S&P/ ASX 200 index was recently up 0.3%.
Bryon Burke, head of equities at Craigs Investment Partners, said intraday ranges in the US markets remained high and that was a sign of uncertainty.
While the US had its own issues, the Brexit debate was getting a lot of attention here. It might not have immediate effects on New Zealand but it did have big implications for Europe and would ultimately affect all markets, he said.
Spark New Zealand was again the heaviest traded stock and it rose 0.6% to $4.20.
Fletcher Building rose 0.7% from a sevenmonth low to $5.67.
A2 Milk rose 0.3% to $10.17.
Outdoor clothing and equipment maker Kathmandu was the biggest decliner after going ex an 11c final dividend. The stock fell 7.8% to $2.61.
Ryman Healthcare fell 4% to $11.42.
Market operator NZX was the biggest gainer, up 2% at $1.04. The company said it had signed up its first customer for its wealth technologies platform.
Meridian Energy and Pushpay Holdings each rose 1.6% to $3.24 and $3.25 respectively.
Pushpay is to be added to the MSCI small cap index at the end of the month. Freightways, which is making room for Pushpay in that index, rose 0.9% to $7.09, having plunged 6% on Wednesday when the change was announced.
Mainfreight rose for a third day, up 0.2% at $31.05.
Precinct Properties NZ fell 0.4% to $1.41 and Property for Industry fell 0.6% to $1.70.
Refining NZ fell 1.3% to $2.34. The country’s sole oil refiner said it was not expecting a material impact from tight natural gas supplies given its ability to use other fuels in its processing.
The Australian sharemarket closed marginally lower, heavyweight healthcare and financial stocks unable to hold on to gains, and ended the week solidly in the red.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 5.4 points, or 0.09%, to 5730.6 on Friday, while the All Ordinaries was 2.4 points at 5822.8.
The Australian dollar was buying US72.68c at 1630 AEDT.
Local shares started higher after overnight gains on Wall Street then lost steam about midday due to weakness in Asian markets.
‘‘There is no real news driving the performance today, but we had some heavy losses on Tuesday and Wednesday, so there is an element of bargain hunting in heavyweight stocks,’’ CommSec market analyst James Tao said.
The local market is down around 3.2% for the
Aweek.
Most of the heavy lifting on Friday was done by materials, healthcare and financial stocks.
The big miners continued their strong run. Commonwealth Bank was the only one of the big four to end in positive territory.
NAB was the worst performer, with shares down 0.5% lower at $23.77.
Myer shares, which last traded at 45c on Thursday, remained in a trading halt to give the troubled retailer time to fully respond to reports of weak trading in the last quarter.
Other consumerfocused stocks also traded weaker, led by supermarket giants Woolworths and Colesowner Wesfarmers down 0.7% and 2.2% respectively. — BusinessDesk/AAP