Market commentary

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s benchmark equities index rose yesterday as the United States looked Down Under for solutions to its critical shortage of infant formula, sending a2 Milk up more than 10%.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 80 points to 11,145.50. Turnover was $148 million.

Shares in infant formula maker Bubs Australia soared yesterday after the Australian company struck a deal to export its products to the US, which has been struck with a shortage.

US President Joe Biden announced the deal in a tweet at the weekend, saying the company would deliver 27.5 million bottles, the equivalent of the 1.25 million cans reported by Bubs.

Duallisted infant formula exporter a2 Milk is similar enough to Bubs that the two stocks often trade in sync with one another.

The news that Bubs had found a way to enter the notoriously difficult American market was well received by a2 investors, who bid the stock up 10.2% to $5.17.

Both Fonterra and a2 Milk have also applied to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval to supply infant formula to the US.

Milk processing companies had a less impressive share price bump. Synlait Milk was up just 0.9% at $3.43 and Fonterra Shareholder Fund Units were unchanged at $2.85.

Fonterra yesterday acknowledged ‘‘concern about the decline’’ in its farmeronly share price in recent weeks and said it would more actively support liquidity.

At Friday’s closing price of $2.28, the shares were collectively worth just half of the $7.4 billion they were worth the day before the cooperative announced its capital restructuring.

Cinema software company Vista Group International rose 6% to $1.63 having upgraded an existing client in Latin America to its new Vista Cloud platform.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare climbed 3.3% to $20.15 and Pacific Edge dropped 10.4% to 69c.

The cancertesting company reported softerthanhoped results last week and investors are losing interest in buying growth stocks that are not delivering.

Importexport software provider Trade Window dropped 8.2% to $1.12 after it said it will need to raise $10 million of new capital by September to fund its fastgrowth strategy.

The company gave its first fullyear report since listing in November. Its trading revenue has grown 136% to $3.9 million but it posted a $10.8 million net loss with operational expenses up 76% at $14.4 million.

The tradeweighted index was at 72.57, up from 72.34. —