Market Announcements
Market Summary
The New Zealand sharemarket weathered the sell-off in tech stocks on Wall Street with another steady day Thursday, with some local software firms rebounding. The S&P/NZX 50 Index picked up in the afternoon and closed at 13,444.02, down 23.27 points or 0.17% after reaching an intraday high of 13,493.94. Trading was healthy leading into the Waitangi holiday weekend with 32.9 million shares worth $122.8m changing hands. There were 75 gainers and 63 decliners on the main board.
Cinema management software firm Vista Group rebounded 9c or 5.23% to $1.81; utilities solutions provider Gentrack gained 9c to $7; data analytics company Blackpearl Group was up 1.5c to $1.17; and fleet management provider Eroad increased 3c or 2.91% to $1.06. However, online travel provider Serko declined 12c or 4.36% to $2.63, and Locate Technologies, providing tools for last-mile deliveries, was down 0.006c or 7.5% to 7.4c.
Market leader Fisher and Paykel Healthcare came off its high after falling 12c to $39.90. Infratil was down 11c to $10.83; Summerset declined 26c or 2.27% to $11.20; and Turners Automotive decreased 15c or 1.8% to $8.17. Skellerup, the first to report its latest earnings this week, increased 9c or 1.76% to $5.20.
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels NZ gained 20c or 5.88% to $3.60. ACC disclosed to the market earlier this week that it had bought 2.72m shares for $8.99m, increasing its stake to 7.3%. Mainfreight recovered 89c to $64; Freightways gained 26c or 1.81% to $14.64; Ryman Healthcare was up 5c or 1.85% to $2.75; Napier Port increased 17c or 4.7% to $3.79; T&G Global added 8c or 3.2% to $2.58; and Tower was up 4c or 2.11% to $1.94.
Chorus was down 19c or 1.95% to $9.55; Fletcher Building decreased 9c or 2.39% to $3.68; Heartland gave up 4.5c or 3.52% to $1.23; Vulcan Steel shed 16c or 2.04% to $7.69; and Winton Land was down 4.5c or 2.26% to $1.95. Santana Minerals declined 8.5c or 6.77% to $1.17 after telling the market that the decision on its resource consent application for the Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project in Central Otago will be made by Oct 29. The panel convenor confirmed a 140 working-day statutory timeframe for the determination under the Fast-Track Approvals Act. Fonterra Co-operative, up 2c to $6.01, said its long-serving managing director for global markets, René Dedoncker, has resigned. Dedoncker joined Fonterra in 2005 and, among his roles, led the Mainland Group business unit.
Source: Business Desk
Australian Market Report
Ahead of the local open SPI futures were 90 points higher at 8783.
- close [Morningstar with AAP]: Australia's share market has logged its worst session in 10 months, after US tech worries and aftershocks from the precious metals sell-off hammered risk sentiment.
The S&P/ASX200 fell 180.4 points on Friday, down 2.03 per cent, to 8,708.8, as the broader All Ordinaries tumbled 200.3 points, or 2.19 per cent, to 8,954.6.
It was the top 200's biggest daily drop since April, when US president Donald Trump's Liberation Day tariff announcements sent global equities into a tailspin and pummelled global growth expectations.
"There's just a lot working against the market at the moment," Capital.com senior market analyst Kyle Rodda told AAP.
"We've seen that weakness come through Wall Street Tech, mostly on renewed fears about artificial intelligence ROI, and then I think we're seeing the blowback of the sell off of precious metals, which is spilling over to other areas of the market."
All 11 local sectors tumbled at least one per cent, while energy, raw materials, consumer cyclicals, communications, IT and real estate stocks dived two per cent or more.
Gold miners bled lower as the precious metal continued to fishtail from its recent sell-off, trading hands at $US4,846 ($A6,972) an ounce, dragging Denver-headquartered Newmont almost five per cent into the red.
Silver's sell-off has been even more brutal, with more than a third of precious and industrial metal vanishing since last Friday and effectively wiping all of January's nearly parabolic gains.
BHP weighed heavily, down three per cent to $48.79, as Singapore iron ore futures slipped below $US100 a tonne for the first time this year.
Rio Tinto ended the session just below flat, with investors heralding its decision to walk away from Glencore's latest merger offer as disciplined.
Mixed miners, copper plays, rare earths producer and battery minerals stocks also fell.
The heavyweight financials sector couldn't offer any support, shedding 1.2 per cent as the big four banks and most of the sector lost ground.
Real estate stocks underperformed the broader market, dropping 3.9 per cent, with the Reserve Bank's interest rate hike earlier in the week further dampening the segment's fortunes.
Energy stocks lost 2.7 per cent, despite oil prices firming ahead of nuclear talks between the US and Iran in Oman later on Friday.
Elsewhere, coal producers fell and uranium miners sold off sharply, with Paladin Energy down more than 10 per cent on broader weakness and jitters around AI demand and the global data-centre build-out.
The worries also weighed on ASX-listed IT stocks, which dropped to their lowest value since December 2023 during the session.
A 2.4 per cent sell-off in consumer discretionary stocks came as Web Travel plummeted almost 30 per cent on news its Spanish arm is being audited by the national tax agency.
Cryptocurrency Bitcoin tanked to its lowest price since October 2024, caught up in de-leveraging not only of crypto positions, but as traders panic-sold to cover leverage on their precious metals losses.
In company news, real estate digital advertising firm REA group traded more than seven per cent lower after its first half results undershot expectations and warned property listing could fall as much as three per cent this financial year.
The Australian dollar is buying 69.55 US cents, down from 69.72 US cents on Thursday at 5pm.
ON THE ASX:
The S&P/ASX200 fell 180.4 points, or 2.03 per cent, to 8,708.8
The broader All Ordinaries fell 200.3 points, or 2.19 per cent, to 8,954.6
The NZX 50 Lost -64.80 points (-0.48%) to 13379.22
Overseas Market Report
[Morningstar with Dow Jones]:
U.S. stocks ended higher. The DJIA added 2.5% to 50,115.67, the S&P 500 climbed 2% to 6,932.30 and the Nasdaq lifted 2.2% to 23,031.21.
Among S&P 500 companies, the top three gainers were Robinhood Markets Inc HOOD surging 13.95%, Coinbase Global Inc COIN jumped 13.00%, and Super Micro Computer Inc SMCI lifted 11.44%.
The biggest decliners were Molina Healthcare Inc MOH which dropped 25.67%, VeriSign Inc VRSN fell 7.70%, and News Corp NWSA lost 7.13%.
Asia
Chinese shares closed mixed. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.3% to 4,065.58 and the Shenzhen Composite Index was unchanged at 2,649.57.
Hong Kong shares ended lower. The benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 1.2% to 26,559.95.
Japanese shares ended higher. The Nikkei Stock Average climbed 0.8% to 54,253.68.
India shares ended higher. The BSE SENSEX rose 0.3% to 83,580.40.
Europe
Stocks in the U.K. finished higher. The FTSE 100 Index added 0.6% to 10,369.75. In Europe, shares closed higher. The Germany's DAX added 0.9% to 24,721.46, and the France's CAC 40 gained 0.4% to 8,273.84
