Markets with Madison: Currencies, NZ equities ‘more attractive’ after OCR peak

Award-winning fund manager Milford saw its offshore currency investments fuelled this week and is keen to buy more shares of New Zealand companies, after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand strongly signalled it was done hiking interest rates.

Deputy chief investment officer Jonathan Windust told Markets with Madison he was keen to “pull the trigger” and look to swap some of its cash and fixed income assets for equities, after receiving the most certainty from Governor Adrian Orr he’d had in recent years.

“In terms of the New Zealand market, we can look at things with a slightly more positive light. It does make companies more attractive.”

He believed a turning point in the rate cycle could benefit companies tied to the housing market such as retirement village operators and dividend paying stocks, but many New Zealand companies were still overvalued, especially Mainfreight and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.

A fall in the New Zealand dollar versus the United States dollar this week was also positive, he said.

“We have increased our exposure to offshore currencies (sold NZD) over recent months so the fall in the NZD benefits our funds.”

The current position of Milford’s active growth funds is revealed on today’s episode of Markets with Madison - those funds won the INFINZ Diversified Growth Fund Manager award for the second consecutive year this week.

But, could artificial intelligence (AI) soon replace fund managers?

New Zealand technology entrepreneur Charles Meaden has created an AI chatbot, aka a “modern Blomberg terminal”, that analysed some market information to help investors research.

It was funded by local, undisclosed investors, and was built on an Alpaca application programming interface, utilising OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 generative artificial intelligence.

Watch a live demonstration of the tool in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.

Get investment analysis and insights from the experts on Markets with Madison every Monday and Friday on the NZ Herald.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this programme is of a general nature, and is not intended to be personalised financial advice. We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional to suit your individual circumstances.