Market commentaries
WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares fell, pushing the benchmark index to a weeklow, as geopolitical tensions weighed on equities. Pushpay Holdings extended its slide to a fiveweek low after its weak sales report. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Sky Network Television declined. Synlait Milk broke with its frequent running mate A2 Milk, chalking up the day’s biggest gain, while A2 fell.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 49.50 points, or 0.6%, to 8404.22. Within the index, 28 stocks fell, 16 gained, and six were unchanged. Turnover was $125 million.
Escalating tensions in the Middle East, where US President Donald Trump has threatened a missile strike on the Syrian regime have driven up the price of crude oil and sapped risk appetite.
However, Hamilton Hindin Greene adviser James Smalley says the strength of the kiwi dollar is a better signal of whether investors fear the New Zealand economy is at threat from global forces.
‘‘New Zealand is a bit of a bellwether, being an open trading economy,’’ he said. ‘‘You would have thought there would be an impact on the currency.’’ The kiwi traded recently at US73.58c, having gained 2.9% in the past three weeks.
F&P Healthcare, which gets the biggest portion of its revenue in US dollars, fell 2.7% to $12.75.
F&P Healthcare is one of the companies that will be posting March 31 results in the next month or so.
Pushpay fell 4.8% to $3.94. The mobile app payments developer posted its first dip in quarterly revenue, with annualised committed monthly revenue down 19% in the March quarter.
Sky TV fell 1.7% to $2.33 and is down 16% this year. Consensus was the shares were about fair value around current levels and had found a base.
Spark New Zealand rose 0.4% to $3.40.
Synlait gained 3.5% to $9.26. The stock has often traded in sympathy to A2, its infant formula partner. While there had been concern about Fonterra Cooperative Group separately partnering with A2, Synlait’s medium to longterm outlook was still favourable, Smalley said.
New Zealand Oil & Gas dropped 3.2% after the Government announced plans to end new offshore oil and gas exploration permits to pursue its zerocarbon by 2050 goal. NZOG said it would look further afield for new opportunities.
A The Australian sharemarket closed lower as increasing tensions between the US and Russia over Syria unnerve investors.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 13.2 points, or 0.23%, at 5815.5 points while the broader All Ordinaries was down 14.4 points, or 0.24%, at 5911.4 points.
National turnover was 3.3 billion securities traded, worth $5.6 billion.
Weakness in the heavyweight banking sector outweighed gains among some of the major miners.
Among the big four banks, National Australia Bank fell 0.5% to $28.71, Commonwealth Bank lost 0.8% at $73.09, Westpac fell 0.6% to $28.95, and ANZ dropped 0.3% to $26.82.
In the resources sector, global miner BHP Billiton rose 0.7% to $29.64, Rio Tinto added 0.3% to $76.70, but Fortescue Metals lost 0.4% to $4.45.
Higher prices for some commodities helped boost the Australian dollar. At 1630 AEST, the Aussie was worth US77.51 USc, up from US77.45c on Wednesday. — BusinessDesk/AAP