Record day as NZ sharemarket reopens
Synlait Milk and a2 Milk Co lead the way in busy trading
New Zealand shares surged to a record as the market reopened after Tuesday’s platform failure. Synlait Milk and a2 Milk Co led the gains. The S&P/NZX50 Index gained 148.65 points, or 1.6 per cent, to 9362.67. Within the index, 35 stocks rose, 8 dropped and 7 were unchanged. Turnover was $216.8 million.
“I don’t know if there’s a bit of pentup buying from yesterday (Tuesday), but it’s having a stellar day,” said Robert Garden, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners.
“There’s nothing specific about it though. A lot of the bigger market cap stocks are having a good run. It’s a bit of continuation on the recent momentum the market has had through reporting season, with interest rates looking to stay lower and our dollar falling away probably boosting some of the export stocks,” Garden said Synlait led the index, up 5.2 per cent to $13.15, while a2 Milk rose 4.4 per cent to $12.93. Garden said sentiment had improved after ASX-listed Bellamy’s Organic, which sells infant formula and food, yesterday reported a A$43m ($46.9m) net profit for 2018, turning from a loss in the previous year. Summerset Group Holdings rose 4.5 per cent to $7.90, Fletcher Building gained 3.5 per cent to $6.57, and Westpac Banking Corp advanced 3.1 per cent to $31.20.
Contact Energy was the worst performer as it gave up rights to a 19 cent final dividend, dropping 3.1 per cent or 18 cents to $5.60.
Genesis Energy dropped 2 per cent to $2.515. It reported an 8 per cent increase in full-year operating earnings to $360.5m after dry, still weather boosted demand for coaland gas-fired generation from its Huntly site. Sky Network Television
dropped 1.2 per cent to $2.40 and Z
Energy fell 0.7 per cent to $7.22. Outside the benchmark index,
Vista Group International rose 3.5 per cent to $4.16. It expects to maintain sales momentum through the rest of the year as the acquisition of a Latin American cinema analytics reseller helped boost first-half profit 36 per cent to $5.2m. Methven rose 3.9 per cent to $1.08.
Steel & Tube Holdings rose 3.5 per cent to $1.20. The company reiterated its loss on an earnings before interest and tax basis was $36.2m in the year ended June 30 while normalised ebit was $16.5m.