Shares beat retreat despite solid results
Broker says market has become used to positive upgrades and is asking what next
New Zealand shares fell, led by A2 Milk and Meridian Energy, as investors who have driven the benchmark index to record highs sold stocks. The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 57.03 points, or 0.8 per cent, from a record high to 7410.30. Within the index, 32 stocks fell, 13 rose and six were unchanged. Turnover was $212 million.
dropped 8.7 per cent to $2.10, even after reporting a return to profit that met its guidance in June and posting a 127 per cent gain in revenue. The company sees more growth in the 2017 year in infant formula and milk powders, it said.
fell 2.2 per cent to $2.88 despite posting a 5 per cent gain in pre-tax earnings and announcing a special dividend of 2.44c a share on
A2 Meridian
top of a final dividend of 8.4c, of which 90 per cent was imputed.
“All these companies have been coming out with good results and that’s what the market has been paying for so now it is saying great, what’s next,” said Shane Solly, a director at Harbour Asset Management. “A2 was a great result and actually did meet guidance but the market has become used to positive upgrades.”
which also reported yesterday, fell 3.3 per cent to $2.195. Its full-year operating earnings slipped 2.7 per cent, which it said reflected lower electricity, gas and oil prices combined with ongoing retail market competition. fell 1.1 per cent to $3.49 after reporting a 4.7 per cent gain in adjusted full-year earnings on growth in Auckland and the
Genesis Energy, Vector
expansion of its smart meter fleet, while signalling earnings growth may stall in 2017. Solly said the company is in pretty good order with a robust balance sheet, although it faces structural challenges longer term.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
de-
NZ Oil & Gas Spark
clined 2.6 per cent to $9.95 and fell 2.2 per cent to
New Zealand Goodman Property Trust
$3.815. dropped 2.2 per cent to $1.35.
rose 7.1 per cent to 52.5c after the company said it will resume dividend payments, having clamped down on costs in response to the slump in global energy prices.
tumbled 16 per cent to 31c after the intelligence software developer more than doubled its first-half loss and halved its full-year guidance.
Wynyard Group Metro Performance Glass,
which has more than half the country’s glass processing market, rose 2.4 per cent to $2.15 after telling shareholders at their annual meeting that it expects to see a “marked improvement” in the coming year as it reaps the benefit of New Zealand’s building boom and looks further afield with its recent Australian acquisition.
gained 2.5 per cent to $2.42 a day after it posted an 82 per cent slump in first-half profit and trimmed its interim dividend as a build-up in global oil stocks weighed on the Marsden Point refinery operator’s margins.
The decline was smaller than some analysts had expected.
NZ Refining