NZ Sharemarket Gains 0.5% Thursday

The New Zealand and Australian sharemarkets dipped Thursday, far from convinced that the end of the Iran war was in sight, following US President Donald Trump’s speech to the nation. The S&P/NZX 50 Index was cruising along with a nearly 1% gain until Trump’s “disappointing” speech, then turned to close at 12,902.15, up 76.28 points or 0.59% ahead of the long weekend. The index reached an intraday high of 12,976.3 points. There were 85 gainers and 51 decliners on the main board, and the pre-Easter turnover reached 36.7 million shares worth $137.5 million.

Across the Tasman, the S&P/ASX 200 Index fell even more sharply and was down 1.14% to 8,573.4 points at 6pm NZ time after reaching 8,721 points before Trump’s address.

In his speech, Trump said, “We are on track to complete all our military operations very soon. Operation Epic Fury was designed to never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon … that no one has seen before. “We will hit them hard in the next two to three weeks if there’s no [peace] deal. We will hit electric generating plants simultaneously, but we will not hit oil and give them less chance for survival.” The Brent Crude oil price was up slightly at US$107.60 (NZ$188.45) a barrel, and the NZ dollar fell back to US57.09c against the American greenback after an earlier rise.

At home, the early impacts of the fuel price spike were evident in the ANZ card spending data for March. Fuel spending was up 29.4%, mostly due to price increases, and public transport spending increased 14.2%. ANZ said that in early signs of other spending having to make way, there was a noticeable fall in hospitality and at second-hand goods stores. Overall card spending rose 1.2% in March (seasonally adjusted) and is up 6.2% compared with the same time last year.

KMD Brands crashed to a record low of 8.8c following its heavily discounted capital raise. Its share price was 19.5c when it went into voluntary suspension to finalise details of the raise. Its record high was $2.62 in October 2013. The retailer completed its $6.8m placement and institutional rights offer, raising a total of $44.2m. It is now seeking a further $21.1m through the retail rights offer, which opens on Tuesday.

Hallenstein Glasson was up 14c to $9.90, and Briscoe Group was down 11c, or 2.37%, to $4.53. Market leader Fisher and Paykel Healthcare shed 58c or to $36.70 on trade worth $20.78m; and Gentrack declined 21c or 3.10% to $6.57. Skellerup was down 10c or 1.89% to $5.20; Fletcher Building eased 6c or 2.03% to $2.89; and Vista Group shed 5.5c or 3.24% to $1.64. Contact Energy gained 16c to $9.38; Mercury added 11c or 1.78% to $6.30; a2 Milk increased 25c or 2.24% to $11.40; Ebos rebounded $1.04 or 4.74% to $23; and Ryman Healthcare improved 7c or 3.38% to $2.14.

Channel Infrastructure, up 10c or 3.4% to $3.04, told the market it is working with the Government to add 93 million litres of diesel storage at the Marsden Pt fuel import terminal within two months. Other gainers were Napier Port up 8c or 2.37% to $3.45; Port of Tauranga increasing 13c to $7.89; Property for Industry collecting 4c or 1.85% to $2.20; Vulcan Steel adding 15c or 2.31% to $6.65; and Metro Performance Glass rising 3c or 2.84% to $1.08.

Synlait Milk, unchanged at 44c, has completed the $307m sale of the Pokeno production plant and two Auckland leasehold sites to Chicago-based healthcare company Abbott. Synlait will reduce its total committed bank facilities from $400m to $200m with the sale proceeds.

Air NZ, unchanged at 43.5c, reported a 1.6% decrease in passengers carried to 1.219 million in January compared with the same month last year. Short-haul was down 2% to 1.06 million passengers; long-haul up 0.7% to 157,000. Domestic decreased 4.6% to 709,000, and the Tasman/Pacific routes carried 353,000 passengers, up 3.7%.

Source: Business Desk

Ahead of the local open SPI futures were 4 points higher at 8589.

Local markets were closed on Monday 06 April 2026 due to public holiday.

Companies commencing Ex-Dividend Trading Today (ASX 300):

Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund

[Morningstar with Dow Jones]:

U.S. stocks ended higher. The DJIA added 0.4% to 46,669.88, the S&P 500 gained 0.4% to 6,611.83 and the Nasdaq added 0.5% to 21,996.34.

Among S&P 500 companies, the top three gainers were AppLovin Corp APP surging 6.82%, VeriSign Inc VRSN jumped 5.66%, and Seagate Technology Holdings PLC STX lifted 5.58%.

The biggest decliners were Invesco Ltd IVZ which dropped 5.32%, Super Micro Computer Inc SMCI fell 4.95%, and TKO Group Holdings Inc TKO lost 3.31%.

Asia

Chinese shares closed lower. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index slipped 1% to 3,880.10 and the Shenzhen Composite Index fell 1.5% to 2,498.44.

Hong Kong shares ended lower. The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 0.7% to 25,116.53.

Japanese shares ended higher. The Nikkei Stock Average lifted 0.5% to 53,413.68.

India shares ended higher. The BSE SENSEX added 1.1% to 74,106.85.

Europe

Stocks in the U.K. finished higher. The FTSE 100 Index climbed 0.7% to 10,436.29. In Europe, shares closed mixed. The Germany's DAX slipped 0.6% to 23,168.08, and the France's CAC 40 was unchanged at 7,962.39