Market commentary

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s hotly anticipated earnings season began yesterday with electricity and gas supplier Contact Energy being the first firm to announce its fullyear results to the market.

The electricity company revealed its annual profit had dipped 2.6% in the 12 months ended June 30 compared with the previous period and it also announced it would invest $300 million in a new 51.4 megawatt geothermal power station at Te Huka near Taupo, due online from late 2024.

Contact’s shares ended the day 1.4% higher at $7.82 — with $8.1 million worth of shares traded.

Craigs Investment Partners investment adviser Peter McIntyre said Contact’s earnings were a ‘‘reasonable result’’ — but the real news was the $300 million investment into the new geothermal power station.

The S&P/NZX 50 index rose 58.51 points to 11,789.03. Turnover on the main board was an incredibly light $64.2 million.

Mercury Energy’s earnings are due out today and Mr McIntyre said the results would be interesting as the energy company had enjoyed a ‘‘strong runup’’ to earnings seasons and the market was expecting good numbers from it.

Mercury climbed 0.6% to $6.54 by the end of the day.

Other gainers of the day were top stock Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, which rose 2.5% to $21.37, and Air New Zealand, which edged up 3% to 69 cents by the close.

Carpet manufacturer Bremworth also had a good day on the index and was up 7.6% to 57 cents.

On the other side of the coin, My Food Bag had another tough day, telling the NZX inflation and a slowing economy had caused customers to downgrade to its cheaper mealkit options, which has lowered the mealkit company’s earnings over the past four months.

My Food Bag shares finished the day down 8% at 74 cents.

Other decliners of the day were realestate investment company Property For Industry and telecommunications firm Spark.

Spark fell 1.1% to $5.08 and Property For Industry declined 1.1% to $1.73. —