NZ shares dip as Facebook stumbles
New Zealand shares edged lower as a weak earnings result from Facebook cast a pall over global equity markets while investors prepare for the local earnings season. Property For Industry and Heartland Bank declined, while Sky Network Television extended its recovery.
The S&P/NZX 50 index decreased 1.41 points, or 0.02 per cent to 8932.48. Within the index, 24 stocks fell, 19 gained and seven were unchanged. Turnover was $102.7 million.
Stocks across Asia were mixed after a weak result from Facebook led to a region-wide sell-down in growthorientated stocks, offsetting earlier optimism of a cooling in trade tensions between the US and EU after President Donald Trump met with Jean-Claude Juncker.
“The Facebook result after the market closed in the US really dragged down some of these very high multiple growth-type names,” said Matt Goodson, managing director at Salt Funds Management. Property For Industry led the market lower, down 1.2 per cent to $1.72, matched by a 1.2 per cent decline for Heartland Bank to $1.72. Contact Energy fell 1 per cent to $5.79 and a2 Milk Co declined 0.9 per cent to $10.75.
Sky TV rose 1.9 per cent to $2.65. The pay-TV operator has climbed more than 25 per cent from a trough in March, helped in part by a poor streaming video experience by Optus for football fans in Australia during the recent World Cup finals.
Mainfreight gained 1.5 per cent to $28.20. Chief executive Don Braid told shareholders at yesterday’s annual meeting the June quarter registered strong revenue growth and is “quietly positive” that momentum will hold through the rest of the year. Ryman
Healthcare rose 1.4 per cent to $12.27. The country’s biggest listed retirement village operator and developer told shareholders at yesterday’s annual meeting first-quarter trading was satisfactory, and it had boosted nurses’ pay beyond the increase in Government funding for aged care.
Air New Zealand fell 0.6 per cent to $3.23, Auckland International Airport declined 0.6 per cent to $6.69, Fletcher Building was unchanged at
$7.08, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare gained 0.4 per cent to $14.70, Meridian Energy slipped 0.2 per cent to
$3.135, and Spark New Zealand fell
0.8 per cent to $3.80.
Outside the benchmark index,
Oceania Healthcare gained 1.8 per cent to $1.11 after beating earnings guidance and increasing the pace of development. The aged care company’s chief executive Earl Gasparich
said controlling shareholder Macquarie will probably start reducing its 57 per cent stake now a trading restriction has lifted.
Evolve Education jumped 11 per cent to 62c after it reported on Wednesday that the early childcare education provider may be the subject of a takeover.
NZME was unchanged at 84c. Heightened interest in Australian media stocks after Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media Group announced a merger didn’t spill over into New Zealand.