Market close: NZ shares gain but volatility ahead

The New Zealand sharemarket opened the week with a solid half per cent gain. Photo / NZME

The New Zealand sharemarket opened the week with a solid half per cent gain – but in these uncertain economic times created by high inflation and the Ukraine invasion, there's still plenty of volatility ahead.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index traded within a range of 11,923.38 and 12,027.39 points, and closed at 11,977.77, up 54.38 points or 0.46 per cent.

There were 81 gainers and 66 decliners over the whole market on a day when 67.59 million shares worth $302.42 million were traded because of the quarterly rebalancing in MSCI Equity indices. No New Zealand stock fell out of the indices.

Dan Stratful, investment adviser with Forsyth Barr, said the local market was clinging onto its gains. "The US futures were looking negative, with Nasdaq Composite down 2.5 per cent, and there's likely to be another rocky night on Wall Street. The Nasdaq had an intraday swing of 7 per cent at the weekend."

Stratful said the New Zealand reporting season has been good and this fortunately has held the market up. "It would have been a different story if the results weren't so good because of the uncertainty caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine."

The February ANZ Business Outlook speculated that inflation could hit 8 per cent rather than 6.5 per cent forecast by the Reserve Bank and economists. ANZ said inflation and cost expectations and pricing intentions have reached fresh record highs, while business confidence has fallen 28 points compared with December.

Chorus, which has started a $150m share buy-back, rose 15.5c or 2.17 per cent to $7.305; a2 Milk was up 17c or 2.94 per cent to $5.95; Ryman Healthcare gained 47c or 4.93 per cent to $10; Freightways increased 13c to $12.18; and Mainfreight collected $1.39 or 1.78 per cent to $79.39.

Energy companies had a better day. Meridian gained 11.5c or 2.36 per cent to $4.995; Mercury was up 10c to $5.72; Contact increased 8c to $8.12; and Vector was up 11c or 2.98 per cent to $3.80.

NZME climbed 10c or 7.69 per cent to $1.40; Sky Network Television gained 6c or 2.35 per cent to $2.61; Tourism Holdings rose 15c or 6.07 per cent to $2.62; Rakon increased 8c or 4.68 per cent to $1.79; Scales Corporation collected 24c or 4.99 per cent to $5.05; and Sky City Entertainment was up 6c or 2.07 per cent to $2.96.

Spark was down 8.5c or 1.85 per cent to $4.505; EBOS Group decreased 53c to $38.97; Port of Tauranga declined 8c to $6.07; Delegat Group shed 41c or 3.06 per cent to $13.0; Sanford lost 12c or 2.65 per cent to $4.40; and TradeWindow fell 15c or 7.35 per cent to $1.89.

Property companies Property for Industry fell 8c or 2.88 per cent to $2.70; Precinct Properties was down 4c or 2.56 per cent to $1.60; and Goodman Property Trust declined 4c to $2.41.

Restaurant Brands, which has 359 stores in New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and California, was down 2c to $14.47 after cracking the billion-dollar revenue mark. The fast-food operator reported a 69.3 per cent rise in net profit to $51.9m on revenue of $1.068 billion, up 19.7 per cent for its 2021 financial year. It is paying a final dividend of 32c a share on April 22.

Genesis Energy, which is planning a six-year, fixed rate green bond offer, reported a steady half-year result with net profit increasing 62.88 per cent to $84.7m on revenue of $1.38b, down 2.61 per cent. Operating earnings (ebitdaf) were down 3 per cent to $210.3m and Genesis is paying an interim dividend of 8.7c a share on April 1. Full-year ebitdaf guidance is now $430m-$44-0m, and its share price decreased 2.5c to $2.755.

Online consumer lender Harmoney rose 5c or 3.18 per cent to $1.62 after producing a solid half-year result. Net profit was $1.17m, turning around from a loss of $2.83m, and income reached $42.6m, up 3 per cent. New customer originations increased 224 per cent to $129m, with strong growth in Australia, and it had a loan book of more than $600m at the end of February.

T&G Global, up 3c to $2.88, reported an 18 per cent fall in net profit to $13.6m on steady revenue of $1.365b for the 12 months ending December. Operating profit fell from $32.4m to $16.9m because of hail damage to fruit, labour shortages and increased shipping delays and costs.

Evolve Education has withdrawn its operating earnings (ebitda) guidance of $23m-$25m for the year ending this coming December because of Omicron uncertainty. Evolve's ebitda last year was $12.6m, and its shares increased 3c or 3.57 per cent to 87c.