Market commentaries
WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares fell yesterday, led lower by Sky Network Television on continued earnings worries and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, while Chorus and Arvida Group gained.
The S&P/NZX50 Index dropped 64.15 points, or 0.7%, to 9228. Within the index, 22 stocks fell, 20 rose, and eight were unchanged. Turnover was $137.2 million.
Leading the benchmark index lower was Sky TV, which dropped 3.5% to $2.20. The shares have dropped 17% since the company gave its annual earnings report last month.
‘‘That’s a continuation of a trend we’ve seen since they reported, I would say on concern of continued loss of subscribers, though that’s no great news to anybody,’’ Josh Wilson, principal and senior portfolio manager at NZFunds, said.
‘‘The way I looked at it was they’d done a really good job at taking costs out of the business, but there’s only so far you can cut costs and if revenues continue to decline and follow the trend that they have been, then earnings become the meat in the sandwich and will get squeezed.’’
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 2.7% to $15.20. On Monday, it warned the cost of contesting the latest patent allegations from rival ResMed will cut annual earnings by as much as $10 million in a farranging dispute across multiple jurisdictions.
‘‘It’s just part of doing business from here on in, basically,’’ Mr Wilson said.
‘‘Fisher & Paykel is fortunate it’s not the biggest part of their business. It’s not as much of a threat as if it was infringing around the hospital part of their business. They had a really strong run and this has brought it back to earth a bit.’’
A2 Milk Co fell 3.3% to $12.40 and Auckland International Airport dropped 1.9% to $6.99.
Chorus was the best performer, up 2.3% to $4.83, while Arvida Group rose 2.3% to $1.35 and Metlifecare gained 1.9% to $6.40.
Mr Wilson said much of the focus had been offmarket, with both Steel & Tube Holdings and Oceania Healthcare in trading halts.
Steel & Tube was frozen at $1.23 as it ran a $17.8 million shortfall bookbuild following its deeply discounted 1for1.9 pro rata rights offer, where shareholders bought about $42.3 million of new shares at $1.05.
Oceania Healthcare was stopped at $1.14 as cornerstone shareholder Macquarie Group began selling down some of its shares. Macquarie intends to sell up to 95 million shares at 79c, representing 15.6% of the company, and only part of the 57.2% stake it owns. The smaller stake means the Macquarie entity will no longer be able to control the appointment of any directors to the board.
The Australian sharemarket closed lower, dragged down by a slump in the heavyweight mining sector as worries about a possible escalation of trade tensions hit commodity prices.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index ended the day down 62.7 points, or 1%, at 6230.4 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 59.7 points, or 0.93%, at 6339.2 points.
Bell Direct equities analyst Julia Lee said the trade tension between the United States and other major economies impacted the ASX, particularly the materials sector which came under pressure after base metal prices slid overnight.
The Australian dollar had a brief lift when data showed the domestic economy grew faster than expected last quarter.
The economy expanded by 0.9% in the June quarter and 3.4% over the 12 months to June, according to ABS national accounts data released yesterday.
The big four banks were down. Westpac led the losses, falling 1.3% to $27.94, while NAB suffered the least, down 0.7% to $28.03.
In company news, Investa Office Fund adjourned a shareholder meeting set to vote on a takeover bid by Blackstone Group after receiving a rival offer from Canada’s Oxford Properties group.
Investa shares closed 2.3% higher at $5.44. — BusinessDesk/AAP