Market commentary

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand sharemarket opened the week with a solid 0.5% gain — but in these uncertain economic times created by high inflation and the Ukraine invasion, there is still plenty of volatility ahead.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index traded within a range of 11,923.38 and 12,027.39 points, and closed at 11,977.77, up 54.38 points, or 0.46%.

There were 81 gainers and 66 decliners over the whole market on a day when 67.59 million shares worth $302.42 million were traded because of the quarterly rebalancing in MSCI Equity indices. No New Zealand stock fell out of the indices.

Forsyth Barr investment adviser Dan Stratful said the local market was clinging to its gains.

‘‘The US futures were looking negative, with Nasdaq Composite down 2.5%, and there’s likely to be another rocky night on Wall Street. The Nasdaq had an intraday swing of 7% at the weekend.’’

Mr Stratful said the New Zealand reporting season had been good and that, fortunately, had held the market up.

‘‘It would have been a different story if the results weren’t so good because of the uncertainty caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.’’

The February ANZ Business Outlook speculated that inflation could hit 8% rather than the 6.5% forecast by the Reserve Bank and economists. ANZ said inflation and cost expectations and pricing intentions had reached new highs, while business confidence had fallen 28 points compared with December.

Chorus, which has started a $150 million share buyback, rose 15.5c, or 2.17%, to $7.305; a2 Milk was up 17c, or 2.94%, to $5.95; Ryman Healthcare gained 47c, or 4.93%, to $10; Freightways increased 13c to $12.18; and Mainfreight collected $1.39, or 1.78%, to $79.39.

Energy companies had a better day. Meridian gained 11.5c, or 2.36%, to $4.995; Mercury was up 10c to $5.72; Contact increased 8c to $8.12; and Vector was up 11c, or 2.98%, to $3.80.

NZME climbed 10c, or 7.69%, to $1.40; Sky Network Television gained 6c, or 2.35%, to $2.61; Tourism Holdings rose 15c, or 6.07%, to $2.62; Rakon increased 8c, or 4.68%, to $1.79; Scales Corporation collected 24c, or 4.99%, to $5.05; and Sky City Entertainment was up 6c, or 2.07%, to $2.96.

Spark was down 8.5c, or 1.85%, to $4.505; EBOS Group decreased 53c to $38.97; Port of Tauranga declined 8c to $6.07; Delegat Group shed 41c, or 3.06%, to $13.0; Sanford lost 12c, or 2.65%, to $4.40; and TradeWindow fell 15c, or 7.35%, to $1.89.

Property companies Property for Industry fell 8c or 2.88 per cent to $2.70; Precinct Properties was down 4c or 2.56 per cent to $1.60; and Goodman Property Trust declined 4c to $2.41.

Online consumer lender Harmoney rose 5c, or 3.18%, to $1.62 after producing a solid halfyear result. Net profit was $1.17 million, turning around from a loss of $2.83 million, and income reached $42.6 million, up 3%. New customer originations increased 224% to $129 million, with strong growth in Australia, and it had a loan book of more than $600 million at the end of February.

T&G Global, up 3c to $2.88, reported an 18% fall in net profit to $13.6 million on steady revenue of $1.365 billion for the 12 months ending December. Operating profit fell from $32.4 million to $16.9 million because of hail damage to fruit, labour shortages and increased shipping delays and costs.

Evolve Education has withdrawn its operating earnings (ebitda) guidance of $23 million$25 million for the year ending this December because of Omicron uncertainty. Evolve’s ebitda last year was $12.6 million, and its shares increased 3c or 3.57 per cent to 87c. —