Investors return as US election votes come in - Market close

Turnover on the NZX reached $143.2 million today, outstripping the previous two days' trading. Photo / File

Volumes returned to the New Zealand share market on Wednesday as US presidential election votes trickled in and investors digested them.

The trading data on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX) stopped updating at about 4.30pm due to a technical issue that the exchange said it was investigating and was unsure when it would be fixed.

As a consequence, at the time of writing, it was unclear how the S&P/NZX50 performed throughout the day. The NZX did however share the closing prices of each individual stock.

Turnover reached $143.2 million, outstripping the previous two days’ trading. Nine companies traded volumes of more than a million shares.

Just before the NZX closed, Salt Investments managing director Matt Goodson said early signals appeared to point to the market predicting a Donald Trump victory.

The US dollar rallied as early vote counts in the close US presidential election appeared to give him an edge over Kamala Harris.

Goodson highlighted a jump in the yield of 10-year US treasury bonds, which indicated the market anticipated US interest rates to stay higher for longer due to Trump’s more inflationary policy platform.

”Markets will be very concerned about Trump’s more aggressive fiscal deficit plans, and the impact of tariffs on inflation,” Goodson said.

Goodson said the NZX was still quiet and had yet to substantively respond. ”At times, the NZ market just marches to the beat of its own drum, and today is just one of those days,” he said. “The market’s relatively quiet, with a couple of exceptions.”

One exception was Smart’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which is pegged to the price of bitcoin. It was up 9.83% to $2.805. With 121,000 shares traded, volumes were the highest since the ETF was listed in late October.

Trump is perceived as more actively supportive of cryptocurrencies than Harris.

For the third day this week, Spark and Infratil dominated trading volumes, collectively accounting for more than a third of the total value traded. Spark was down 0.84% to $2.945 and Infratil gained 1.98% to $12.89 on volumes valued at $34m. The market is anticipating Spark’s departure from the MSCI Global Index and Infratil’s entry into it, which partially explains the former’s lacklustre performance of late.

Goodson said MSCI is likely to confirm the trader’s suspicions on Thursday.

”It’s already been at least partly anticipated by people, and so some of that’s already been traded,” Goodson said. “But just how much is hard to say.”

Goodson added that news the value of Infratil’s stake in CDC Data Centres has increased may also be inviting investors into the stock.

Ebos Group recorded its second consecutive day in the top 10 gainers, up 2.64% to $37. After a topsy-turvy few months, the dual-listed healthcare and pharmaceutical marketer and wholesaler’s shares are now almost flat with where they were a year ago.

Tower was up 2.75% to $1.31, a week after chief executive Blair Turnbull announced his resignation. The insurer, which is up more than twofold year-on-year, will report full-year earnings later in November. NZX Limited and Trade Window Holdings rose 4.32% to $1.45 and 4.26% to 24.5c respectively; Vital Healthcare jumped 1.8% to $1.975.Santana Minerals was the standout decliner, dropping 13.77% to 72 cents.

Rua Science fell 6.25% to 4.5c on modest volumes after it announced a $3.1m capital raise to meet its immediate cash flow requirements.

Other decliners included a2 Milk, down 2.64% to $5.89, and Seeka, which lost 4.48% to $2.77.