Prices put on late surge ahead of long weekend

The New Zealand sharemarket woke up late in the day and gained nearly half a per cent — but closed the week lagging offshore exchanges.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index drifted for most of the day, reaching a low of 12,960.44. But in the last hour before the Waitangi long weekend, trading increased considerably and the index turned around, closing 61.73 points or

0.48 per cent ahead at 13,053.87. This followed another strong day on Wall Street and the Australian exchange.

Volume reached 65.3 million share transactions worth $169.16m, and there were 101 gainers and just 42 decliners over the whole market.

The index fell nearly 1.3 per cent this week, while across the Tasman the S&P/ASX

200 Index climbed 3.54 per cent. At 5.45pm (NZ time) it was up 1.12 per cent to 6841 points. In the US overnight, the technologyheavy Nasdaq Composite hit an all-time high of 13,777.74 with a 1.23 per cent rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, up 1.08 per cent to 31,055.86, and the S&P 500 Index, up 1.09 per cent to 3871.74, also rallied.

Shane Solly, Harbour Asset Management portfolio manager, said “our market is more defensive than others overseas with an abundance of utilities rather than growth stocks.

“We had a day where the cyclical stocks such as Mainfreight, Fletcher Building and even Steel & Tube and the dual-listed banks very much outperformed others.”

Mainfreight climbed $1.89 or 2.89 per cent to $67.30; Fletcher Building was up 9c to $6.57; and Steel & Tube gained 4c or 3.96 per cent to $1.05. ANZ Banking Group rose 58c or 2.21 per cent to $26.86, and Westpac Banking Corporation increased 63c or 2.75 per cent to $23.58.

Stocks that have been knocked around by Covid-19 showed plenty of life. Software travel firm Serko rose 15c or 2.65 per cent to $5.80; seafood company Sanford was up 19c or 4.03 per cent to $4.90; and cinema software firm Vista Group increased 3c or 1.95 per cent to $1.57.

The energy stocks had one of their quieter but still positive days — Contact was up 5c to $8.15; Genesis gained 10.5c or 2.78 per cent to $3.885; and Meridian increased

2c to $6.99. Tilt Renewables, now the focus of a possible takeover bid, rose 18c or 2.83 per cent to $6.55.

The heavy hitter holding the market down this time was Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, falling 44c to $33.50 on trade worth $27.2m.

Port of Tauranga fell 4c to $7.37 while other port companies rose — Napier Port up

8c or 2.37 per cent to $3.44, and Marsden gaining 6c to $6.44.