Big banks lead shares to record high
New Zealand shares rose to a fresh record, led by Westpac Banking Corp and ANZ Banking Corp on positive regulatory news out of Australia, while Contact Energy fell after weaker monthly statistics.
The S&P/NZX50 Index rose 18.44 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 7725.77. Within the index, 32 stocks rose, 11 fell and seven were unchanged. Turnover was $151 million.
The dual-listed banks led the index’s gains, with up 4 per cent to $34.43 and rising 3.9 per cent to $31.70.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) yesterday released its new “capital adequacy” targets and will require a 150-basispoint increase in the minimum safety reserves that must be held by the big four banks there. The banks will need to lift Tier 1 equity ratios to 10.5 per cent by January 2020.
“We’ve had a relief rally in the sector, all the banks in Aussie have traded up materially higher,” said Peter McIntyre, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners. gained 2.9 per cent to
rose 2 per $3.52,
Westpac ANZ CBL Corp Port of Tauranga Genesis Energy
cent to $4.54 and gained 1.6 per cent to $2.51.
Property stocks have continued gains after Tuesday’s inflation numbers which gave the market confid- ence that the Reserve Bank won’t lift interest rates anytime soon, McIntyre said. rose 1.5 per cent to $1.39 and gained 1.2 per cent to $1.71.
Investore Property Stride Property
“Our market is very interest-rate sensitive and does tend to like lower interest rates, it’s really a dividend yielding exchange so that’s been positive for them and there has been good volume running through the property sector today,” McIntyre said
was the worst performer, down 1.3 per cent to $5.19.
“We are trading to the upside again today, news has predominantly been driven by Contact which had its monthly operational report,” McIntyre said.
“It was a bit of a mess really, the hydro production relative to PCP was materially soft and the South Island remains very dry, storage levels are around 56 per cent of the long-run average and the near-term outlook is more of the same. It looks like July is going to stack up as another poor month for Contact, those numbers were weak.” fell 1.3 per cent to $3.95
dropped 1.1 per
Contact Energy A2 Milk Air New Zealand
and cent to $3.47. Outside the benchmark index,
remained suspended at 22c. The unprofitable management app developer plans a two-for-one share consolidation aimed at lifting the price of its stock enough to qualify for an ASX listing.
GeoOp’s shares were suspended from trading on June 29.
GeoOp