My Food Bag misses mark, energy pair slips

Heavyweights Meridian Energy and Contact Energy pulled the New Zealand sharemarket down during a session that also featured a disappointing debut for My Food Bag.

The benchmark S&P/NZX50 Index ended the week down 0.36 per cent, or 44.25, at 12,180.25, following a 1 per cent dive on Thursday.

Shares in My Food Bag, the biggest IPO to hit the NZX in seven years, were offered to new investors for $1.85 each but failed to reach that offer price yesterday. It closed down 5.9 per cent at $1.74, hitting a low of $1.65 during the day, with $8.6 million worth of shares changing hands.

Top stock Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 1.9 per cent to $28.55, but it was outmuscled by big declines in Meridian, down 6.4 per cent on heavy volume to $5.31, and Contact, down 4.1 per cent to $6.71. Among other blue chips, Auckland International Airport rose

1.5 per cent to $7.14, A2 Milk was up

1.2 per cent at $10.13, and Fletcher Building was down 1 per cent at $6.53.

Elsewhere, Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 Index fell

0.7 per cent, or 49.9 points, to

6710.8.

On Wall Street, stocks fell sharply after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell failed to reassure investors that inflation and bold yields would stay under control when the pandemic ends and US economic activity rebounds.

The benchmark S&P 500 fell 1.3 per cent to 3768.47, its third straight loss.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.1 per cent to

30,924.14, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 2.1 per cent to

12,723.47

US Treasury yields jumped to more than 1.5 per cent after Powell spoke on Thursday (US time).