Shares slip in ‘phony war’ before results
Building, glass companies lead stock down
New Zealand shares fell ahead of earnings season which begins today, with Metro Performance Glass and Fletcher Building down while SkyCity Entertainment Group and Scales Corp rose.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 0.78 of a point, or 0.01 per cent, to 7066.27. Within the index, 24 stocks dropped, 22 rose and four were unchanged. Turnover was $115 million.
“It’s a bit of a phony war awaiting results season,” said Matt Goodson, managing director at Salt Funds Management. “The December quarter was quite weak for the New Zealand market, and really what was driving that was a sharp rise in bond yields from all-time record lows, and the heavy weighting of bond, property type stocks in our market, then January was really a bit of a rebound.”
led the index lower, down 3.2 per cent to $1.50. The Auckland-based company,
Metro Performance Glass
which has more than half the country’s glass-processing market, saw its shares plunge 18.5 per cent last Friday after saying annual net profit was likely to be similar or even lower than the prior year’s $20.5m as local sales lagged behind expectations and costs were higher than expected. dropped 2.8
fell 2
Fletcher Building Metlifecare Heartland
per cent to $10.11, per cent to $5.45, and declined 1.3 per cent to $1.56.
was the best performer, up 4.2 per cent to $3.74 ahead of its earnings announcement today. The stock had been sold off sharply in the past few days with investors nervous before the result, Goodson said.
rose 3.3 per cent to
Bank SkyCity Scales Corp Australia & New Zealand Banking Group
$3.47, advanced 2.3 per cent to $30.59, and Westpac gained 1.9 per cent to $33.78. gained 0.5 per cent to $2.88. In a market update, the infrastructure investor was upbeat about
Corp Infratil Banking
its investment in United States renewable energy development company Longroad Energy Holdings, despite President Donald Trump’s election promises to boost coal.
Spark New Zealand
dipped 0.4
Fliway Group Hellaby TeamTalk
per cent while fell 1.3 per cent to 74c. TeamTalk says a proposed $22.7m takeover offer from Spark is hostile, highly conditional and recommended shareholders take no action pending further communication from the board. Outside the benchmark index,
dropped 3.4 per cent to $1.13. First-half profit dropped 39 per cent to $2.2m as the impact of a major customer’s exit and higher freight costs caused by last November’s Kaikoura earthquake weighed on the transport and logistics group.
The transport group expects its second-half performance will be an improvement on the prior year, with sales growth a priority as it “looks to sell to capacity in its network and increase relationships with existing customer and business partners”.
was un-
Holdings
changed at $3.57.
It will delist from the NZX by March 8, after ASX-listed vehicle-parts company Bapcor succeeded in its $352m takeover of the diversified investment group this month.