Market commentary
WELLINGTON: THE nervousness and caution that persisted this week, for the first time in a long while, caught up with the New Zealand sharemarket which fell more than 2% following a plunge on Wall Street.
The main board was a sea of red as the S&P/NZX 50 Index slumped 287.54 points, or 2.15%, to 13,086.46 — its biggest oneday fall in seven months. The index fell 2.3% on July 9. There were 119 decliners and just 24 gainers on trade of 74.9 million share transactions worth $176.14 million.
The Australian S&P/ASX 200 Index was down 2.14% to 6635.80 points at 5.45pm (NZ time), after the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 633.87 points or 2.05% overnight, to 30,303.17. The S&P 500 Index fell 2.57% to 3750.77 and the technologyheavy Nasdaq Composite declined 2.61% to 13,270.60.
Mark Lister, head of private wealth research for Craigs Investment Partners, said the market was overdue ‘‘for a little bit of weakness’’, as it had had a strong run since the United States election.
’‘If the volatility continues over the next few days, there’s no shortage of money sitting on the sideline waiting to get invested,’’ he said.
‘‘The silver lining of a pullback is that it makes it easier for investors to find some value. It’s been quite difficult to find opportunity across the market because of its strong run.’’
All the blue chip stocks were down. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare fell 70c to $34.50, a2 Milk was down 17c to $11.33, Ebos Group declined 30c to $28.40, Chorus decreased 12c to $8.26, Mainfreight shed $1.11 to $67.29; and Pushpay Holdings was down 10c to $1.58.
Other decliners were Fletcher Building, down 15c to $6.20, Synlait decreased 11c to $4.72, NZX lost 8c to $2.04, SkyCity Entertainment declined 7c to $2.98 and Tourism Holdings fell 10c to $2.32.
The duallisted banks joined the volatility, as ANZ Banking Group fell 57c to $25.64 and Westpac lost 34c to $22.74. Heartland Group Holdings fell 7c to $1.81, and AMP was down 6c to $1.59.
The leading energy stocks continued to fall. Contact was down 39c to $8.35, Meridian fell 54c to $7.21 and Mercury shed 26c to $7.11. Genesis Energy slipped 5c, to $3.84c.
Trustpower, likely to be caught up in a possible fresh takeover bid for Infratil, fell 3c to $8.73 after announcing it was conducting a review of its business with an option of selling its retail operation (with 231,000 customers) and solely focusing on electricity generation. Infratil, the majority shareholder of Trustpower, slumped 19.5c to $7.655.
Retirement village operator Arvida Group reported strong sales for the third quarter ending December but it got caught up in the selloff and its share price slipped 2c to $1.77.
Fellow retirement village operators Ryman Healthcare fell 8c to $15.80, and Summerset Group Holdings was down 20c to $12.20.
Going against the trend, water cooler supplier Just Life continued to surge, up 8c to $1.11 and Livestock Improvement Corporation increased 6c to 90c, following an improved halfyear financial result. —