Flat day on the sharemarket as energy stocks continue strong trading - Market close

Contact Energy, likely to replace Mercury in the MSCI World Index next month, saw 3.08 million shares worth $29.66m change hands.

The New Zealand sharemarket finished the second trading day of the year on a flat note, but there was continued interest in energy stocks Contact and Mercury in anticipation of an index change.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index perked up at lunchtime after falling to a morning low of 12,973.01 and closed at 13,072.93, up 5.1 points or 0.039%.

Volumes increased with 21.06 million share transactions worth $114.52m. Contact, likely to replace Mercury in the MSCI World Index next month, saw 3.08m shares worth $29.66m change hands, while Mercury had trade of 2.5m shares worth $14.42m.

Contact was down 6c to $9.62, and Mercury decreased 10c or 1.74% to $5.66.

Salt Funds Management managing director Matt Goodson said the local market was typically quiet in the holiday season, despite a bubbly lead from the United States overnight.

“The exception was heavy trading in Mercury and Contact being driven by the upcoming changes in the MSCI index. The price period is the last 10 trading days of this month and it does look highly likely that Contact will replace Mercury (as one of five constituent New Zealand stocks),” Goodson said.

On Wall Street, the markets had a strong rebound in their last trading day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8% to 42,732.13 points; S&P 500 increased 1.26% to 5942.47; and Nasdaq Composite rose 1.77% to 19,621.68.

Chipmaker Nvidia was up 4.45% to US$144.47; electric car maker Tesla increased 8.22% to US$410.44; and Rocket Lab reached a new high after gaining 3.78% to US$28.74.

Infratil was down 12.5c to $12.24 after telling the market CDC Data Centres had signed more than 230MW of new customer contracts, with half of them being reservations.

CDC is building 388MW of capacity and will start another 200MW of additional capacity within six months. Infratil will invest another A$250m ($276m) over the next one to two years to help fund the expanding development pipeline.

Infratil’s 48.17% shareholding in CDC is now valued at A$4.485 billion to $5.385b (midpoint $4.924b), up from $4.386b-$5.248b (midpoint $4.811b) at the end of September — a net increase of $113m.

Goodson said the valuation increase was a touch disappointing. The customer additions were in line with market expectations, but longer-dated bond yields have risen quite sharply and CDC is a long-term investment for Infratil.

“The valuer has used a slightly higher base interest rate and the small valuation increase is less than the equity Infratil has put into CDC during that period. This hasn’t come as a shock to the market, and there’s no reduction in demand for CDC,” he said.

Market leader Fisher and Paykel Healthcare was up 18c to $38.18; Meridian Energy increased 13c or 2.21% to $6; Auckland International Airport gained 20.5c or 2.4% to $8.735; Skellerup Holdings added 9c or 1.77% to $5.18; and Vector collected 9c or 2.29% to $4.02.

In the banking sector, Westpac increased 50c to $36.01; ANZ gained 31c to $31.93; and Heartland Group was up 2c or 2% to $1.02.

In the retail sector, Hallenstein Glasson gained 13c to $8.45, and Briscoe Group was up 9c or 1.78% to $5.15.

Mainfreight declined $1.74 or 2.37% to $71.75; Ebos Group eased 24c to $37.10c; Summerset Group decreased 24c or 1.82% to $12.95; a2 Milk shed 16c or 2.52% to $6.18; and Fletcher Building was down 9c or 3.11% to $2.80.

Chorus declined 9c to $8.74; Scales Corp decreased 7.75c or 1.96% to $3.87; Eroad was down 4c or 3.74% to $1.03; Blackpearl Group fell 7c or 5.98% to $1.10; T&G Global shed 7c or 4.67% to $1.43; and Move Logistics fell 1.2c or 5.71% to 19.8c.

In the property sector, Stride was up 3c or 2.31% to $1.33; Precinct gained 1.5c to $1.23; Argosy added 1.5c to $1.03; Kiwi collected 1.5c to 92.5c; and Investore was down 2c or 1.74% to $1.13.

Third Age Health increased 9c or 3.61% to $2.58; Green Cross Health gained 3c or 3.66% to 85c; Private Land and Property was up 4.3c or 3.26% to $1.362; Seeka collected 7c or 2.15% to $3.32; and Vital improved 1.5c or 5.88% to 27c.

Cooks Coffee rose 2.5c or 9.09% to 30c; Millennium and Copthorne Hotels NZ increased 7c or 4.05% to $1.80; and Enprise Group added 4c or 3.64% to $1.14;