Market commentary

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand sharemarket continues to go its own merry way with another solid rise, while offshore bourses continued to flounder.

The resilient S&P/NZX 50 Index was up another 76.8 points or 0.62% to 12,462.05 — its 12th rise in 15 days. There were 75 gainers and 64 decliners over the whole market and trading was strong with 81.32 million shares worth $209.7 million changing hands.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index in Australia was down 0.8% to 6185 points at 5.45pm and Wall Street had a sharp afternoon fall as hopes for a new economic stimulus package faded.

Dan Stratful, investment adviser with Forsyth Barr, said the New Zealand market was performing strongly compared with offshore.

‘‘It is doing better than Europe and Australia on most trading days and it just keeps ticking higher.

‘‘The retailers are coming back into favour and the property stocks keep going up. I don’t think the big brand retailers are in as much trouble as people expected,’’ Mr Stratful said.

A healthcare, a port, a retirement village, a milk and an energy stock led the market forward. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare was up 29c to $35.53 on trade worth $17.5 million; Port of

Tauranga climbed 26c or 3.52% to $7.65; Ryman Healthcare rose 27c to $14.77; and a2 Milk increased 8c to $15.78.

Contact Energy was up 15c to $7.71 as it aimed to head back past $8. Contact was supposed to be the next stock on the global MSCI New Zealand Index to join Fisher and Paykel, a2 Milk, Spark, Meridian, Auckland International Airport, Ryman and Mercury.

Contact’s share price needs to reach $8.60 over the next 10 trading days to make the grade on the index — having plunged to $7.56 the day before.

‘‘It comes down to market capitalisation, and we still see value in Contact,’’ Mr Stratful said.

Auckland International Airport was under heavy trading, gaining 4c to $7.31 on 4.85 million share transactions worth $35.48 million. The Warehouse increased 5c or 2.13% to $2.40, Restaurant Brands was up 16c to $12.10, and Serko gained 18c or 3.58% to $5.21.

Chorus fell 7.5c to $8.55; Ebos Group was down 41c to $26; Fletcher decreased 11c to $4.22; and Mainfreight shed 83c to $53.87 after its golden run.

Mercury slipped 2c to $5.28 after providing its latest operating report. Hydro generation fell 170GWh to 1044GWh for the first quarter of the 2021 financial year, reflecting drought conditions within the Lake Taupo catchment. The mass market sales yield increased 6.6% to $137MWh, and customer connections decreased by 6000 to 342,000. Mercury has estimated its fullyear generation will fall by 200GWh to 3700GWh, more than 300GWh below average.

Transportation technology firm EROAD has launched its Clarity Dashcam, designed to help improve safety and enable driver coaching and incident prevention, and, in cases of an accident, proof of facts. Its share price slipped 3c to $4.13.

TruScreen Group remained unchanged at 9.2c, not 92c as wrongly reported previously.

The United States markets went on a wild ride overnight, with the Dow Jones index swinging more than 570 points between highs and lows before finishing sharply down nearly 411 points or 1.44% to 28,195.42. The S&P 500 lost 1.63% to 3426.92 and the Nasdaq had its fifth daily fall, down 1.65% to 11,478.88 points.

Stocks opened higher on hopes a stimulus deal might still get done before the election, and buoyant economic news out of China. But the hopes were dashed, and there were concerns about rising Covid cases in several states. —