Market close: NZ dollar falls to near two-year low as Wall Street plunge drags shares down

The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell at the opening following the renewed United States sell-off over the weekend and it never recovered. Photo / NZME

A further plunge on Wall Street dragged the New Zealand sharemarket down nearly 1 per cent and its confidence will be further tested this week by central bank meetings and more interest rate hikes overseas.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell at the opening after the renewed United States sell-off over the weekend and it never recovered, finishing down 99.94 points, or 0.84 per cent, to 11,784.36. The index has fallen nearly 10 per cent this year.

It was a sea of red. There were 103 decliners and 30 gainers across the whole market, and trading was light with 28.48 million shares worth $96.1 million changing hands.

The NZ dollar reached a near two-year low against the rising American greenback, trading at US64.27c – a bonus for New Zealand exporters but imported goods will cost more.

Mark Lister, head of private wealth research for Craigs Investment Partners, said the fall on the local market was not unexpected given the ugly Friday in the United States – and then "we had some soft Chinese economic data on the back of their lockdown as they box on with their zero Covid policy."

He said other international economic developments this week will affect the New Zealand market. The Australian Reserve Bank, US Federal Reserve and Bank of England are all meeting, and it's likely to be more of the same – interest rates rising.

"The technology stocks have finished reporting in the US but there are still lots of big companies to come and markets will take leads from them, whether they are good or bad reports."

About 80 per cent of S&P 500 companies have beaten quarterly earnings expectations in the current reporting season, but on the troubled Nasdaq Composite big tech companies Amazon, Apple and Intel fell on reports of slowing growth. Amazon was down 14.05 per cent to US$2485.63 ($3866.87), its biggest drop since 2006.

It sent the Nasdaq down 4.17 per cent to a new 2022 low of 12,334.64 points and the index fell 13.3 per cent in April – its worst monthly performance since October 2008 during the global financial crisis.

Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 2.77 per cent to 32,977.21 points, and S&P 500 fell 3.63 per cent to 4131.93. The Nasdaq is nearly 25 per cent below its all-time high, S&P 500 down 14.3 per cent and Dow Jones 10.8 per cent lower.

The Australian S&P/ASX 200 had fallen 1.26 per cent to 7341.1 points at 6pm NZ time.

Many of the established New Zealand stocks were weaker. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare was down 15c to $21.35; Ebos Group declined 55c to $41.85; Chorus decreased 14c or 1.9 per cent to $7.21; Ryman Healthcare shed 15c to $9.06; and Freightways was down 30c or 2.44 per cent to $11.98.

Skellerup Holdings declined 21c or 3.67 per cent to $5.51; Restaurant Brands was down 23c to $12.60; The Warehouse Group shed 11c or 3.19 per cent to $3.34; Heartland Group Holdings decreased 4c to $2.26; and a2 Milk continued its slide, down 11c or 2.24 per cent to $4.81.

Sky Network Television was down 6c or 2.24 per cent to $2.62; Scott Technology fell 13c or 4.22 per cent to $2.95; Michael Hill International declined 5c or 4 per cent to $1.20; DGL Group shed 15c or 3.52 per cent to $4.11; and Bremworth decreased 6c or 7.94 per cent to 58c.

Mercury has completed the $467m purchase of Trustpower's retail business and will double its customer electricity, gas, fixed and wireless broadband and mobile phone connections to 787,000. Mercury, unchanged at $6.06, also launched $200m worth of capital bonds with the ability to accept $50m over-subscriptions.

Trustpower, 51 per cent owned by Infratil, will change its name to Manawa Energy on Thursday and concentrate on power generation. Trustpower's share price gained 16c or 2.37 per cent to $6.90, and Infratil was down 5.5c to $8.345.

Amongst the few gainers, Marsden Maritime Holdings increased 15c or 2.5 per cent to $6.15; Hallenstein Glasson gained 6c to $6.08; T&G Global was up 5c to $2.95; and Eroad improved 6c or 1.91 per cent to $3.20.

Vital Healthcare Property Trust, down 8.5c or 2.72 per cent to $3.035, completed its 1 for 8.54 entitlement offer, raising $109.8m representing 37.2m new units. Eligible institutional unit-holders took up 98 per cent of their entitlements.

Amongst other property companies, Stride fell 8c or 4.04 per cent to $1.90; Precinct Properties was down 4.5c or 2.96 per cent to $1.475; Investore declined 3c or 1.8 per cent to $1.64; and Argosy gained 2c to $1.325.

Fletcher Building, down 1c to $6.18, has appointed Phillip Boylen as the new chief executive of Fletcher Construction Company. Boylen, who joined in 2019, was responsible for Brian Perry Civil and Higgins representing 70 per cent of the construction operations.