Market commentary
WELLINGTON: The weight of expectation pushed Fisher & Paykel Healthcare down more than 6% on the New Zealand sharemarket, which finished the week with a sharp 1% fall yesterday.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index was down 129.82 points or 1.09% to 11,830.03 and fell 2.5% for the week.
The index is still ahead 3% so far this year and up about 6.5% over the past 12 months.
There were 52 gainers and 74 decliners on the main board, with 32.94 million shares worth $159.17 million changing hands.
Respiratory devices manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has been a Covid pandemic beneficiary with strong growth, but as the situation normalises and the company’s earnings slow it has been trimmed on the sharemarket, just like Mainfreight the day before.
Fisher & Paykel fell $1.67 to a fivemonth low of $23.98 on trade worth $37.03 million after reporting a 6% decline in revenue to $1.58 billion and 34% drop in net profit to $250.3 million for the year ending March. It is paying a final dividend of 23c a share on July 7.
The secondhalf result was encouraging — operating revenue grew 14% to $890.5 million — as markets progressed towards more of a normal state. Fullyear hospital product revenue was down 15% to $1.02 billion and homecare was 18% higher than the previous year with a record $553.8 million.
Mainfreight was down 41c to $68; Chorus declined 10.5c to $8.23; Mercury Energy decreased 8.5c to $6.30; a2 Milk shed 7c to $5.73; and Ebos Group was down 70c to $42.48.
Other decliners were Channel Infrastructure down 4c to $1.45; Michael Hill dipping 3c to $1.03; Sanford shedding 9c to $4.15; Solution Dynamics falling 10c to $2.25; and Savor down 2c to 37c.
Stride Property gained 4c to $1.35 after reporting a betterthanexpected distributable profit of $57.6 million for the 12 months ending March, compared with $54.2 million the previous year. Net rental income was $71.1 million, up from $65.8 million.
Stride had a net loss of $116.74 mainly because of a $118.5 million reduction in the value of its portfolio. It is forecasting a combined cash dividend of 8c a share for the 2024 financial year.
Infratil hit $10 with a gain of 12c; Synlait Milk increased 4c to $1.56; Seeka collected 5c to $2.84; Gentrack added 9c to $4.30; and Sky TV was up 5c to $2.59.
Eroad improved 3c to 60c; ikeGPS gained 2c to 77c and Greenfern Industries was up 0.009c to 6.1c.
Software firm TradeWindow, up 0.005c to 36.5c, has formed a partnership with Export Council Australia to accelerate the adoption of digital solutions for trade.
The latest ANZ NZ Roy Morgan survey showed consumer confidence in May was flat and the proportion of people who believed it was a good time to buy a major household item fell 3 points to minus 34. — The