Market commentaries
WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares were mixed yesterday, A2 Milk Co bouncing after recent selling while Orion Health Group sank to a record low.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index gained 10.86 points to 8329.93. Within the index, 20 stocks fell, 19 stocks rose, and 11 were unchanged. Turnover was $104 million.
‘‘It hasn’t been a bad day for the market, given what we saw from the US overnight,’’ said Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners.
‘‘Local investors would be pleasantly surprised to be slightly in the green given it was another rough night on Wall Street. We started off on the back foot but we’ve certainly recovered throughout the day and we’re outperforming other markets.’’
Leading gains yesterday was Mercury New Zealand, up 2.5% to $3.30. Meridian Energy rose 2.5% to $2.952 and Port of Tauranga gained 2.1% to $4.89.
A2 Milk rose 0.6% to $12.47. The company said in a statement yesterday it had not seen any change in growth in China and it was confident in its business after the shares weakened on news competitors had begun selling their own A2branded infant formulas in China. The stock fell 6.5% last Wednesday when Nestle confirmed it had launched an A2 product.
The worst performer was Heartland Bank, down 2.8% to $1.71. Trade Me Group fell 1.8% to $4.35.
Outside the benchmark index, Orion Health fell 8.6% to 64c, a record low. The healthcare software developer missed guidance for annual sales due to delays in finalising some large deals.
A The Australian sharemarket closed slightly weaker but avoided most of the impact of the overnight fall in US tech stocks.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index lost 7.5 points to 5751.9 points yesterday, while the broader All Ordinaries index fell 9.8 points to 5859.1.
Macquarie Private Wealth division director Martin Lakos said that with the Nasdaq leading declines in the US, the absence of a large tech sector on the ASX was in Australia’s favour.
US tech stocks were hit hard with US President Donald Trump renewing criticism of Amazon.com, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg conceding his company might take years to recover from recent PR disasters and an illconceived April Fool’s Day joke about bankruptcy from Tesla boss Elon Musk. Santos shares jumped out of a trading halt by more than 20% in morning trade before closing 82c higher, at $5.89 after US private equity firm Harbour Energy raised its bid for the local energy producer a third time, to about $13.5 billion.
Woodside Petroleum was ahead 0.7% to $29.45, and Oil Search retreated 1.0% to $7.08.
A rally in the iron ore price helped BHP Billiton rise 1.8% to $28.71 and Rio Tinto climbed 2.1% to $74.19. Fortescue Metals fell 1.6%, to $4.26.
Shares in ANZ fell 1.2% to $26.55, while Australia’s other big three lenders ended between steady and 0.2% lower.
Turnover was 3.1 billion securities traded worth $A5.9 billion — BusinessDesk/AAP