“It’s really mixed here. Oracle’s announcement has obviously validated the tech side, but I suppose there’s a lot of anticipation or probably even more relevance on what the US CPI [Consumers Price Index] does tonight for our market,” Smith said.
Infratil continued its positive momentum after news in the US of Oracle’s projected cloud revenue, growing the importance of data centre infrastructure.
Oracle’s share price surged more than 36% following its update, forecasting US$18 billion ($30b) in FY2026, with cloud revenue rising to US$144b in five years.
Infratil’s share price rose 15c or 1.2% to $12.60 after 703,029 shares changed hands on turnover worth $8.8m.
In other positive news, minor stock Scott Technology’s share price rallied 15.38% to $2.25 after it outlined plans to double its revenue to $530m by 2030.
Elsewhere, Spark released its new five-year business strategy, refocusing the business on its core of connectivity from a broader digital services ambition.
The business also gave an update on the succession of chairwoman Justine Smyth, confirming she will stand for re-election at the upcoming annual meeting in November, with the intention to serve for a period of up to 12 months.
Spark’s share price fell 2.4% to $2.44 after 1.6 million shares changed hands on turnover worth $4m.
Smith said there wasn’t much in the announcement that would stand out to investors but suggested the previously announced sale of 75% of its data centre business could be giving away some potential upside.
“You’d have to think still that whilst it might be giving away some long-term upside to the data storage, the reality is building data centres is going to be expensive.”
Meanwhile, the share price for Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the market’s largest company, fell 23c or 0.6% to $38.20 after 435,453 shares changed hands on turnover worth $16.6m.
Contact Energy shares also fell, dropping 14c to $9.21 on turnover worth $9.6m.
The S&P 500 finished at a new record on Wednesday after a huge rally in Oracle shares as major US indices diverged before key consumer inflation data.
Shares in Oracle surged more than 36% after the software giant projected huge revenue growth in the next few years as it prospers from the artificial intelligence investment boom.
Those gains helped lift the S&P 500 by 0.3% to 6532.05, a second straight record.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index edged up less than 0.1% to 21,886.06, also a record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.5% to 45,490.92.
US equities have been on a tear in recent sessions as markets anticipate a likely Federal Reserve interest rate cut next week amid signs of a weakening US employment market.
Those expectations were reinforced by a surprise 0.1% decline in the producer price index in August, according to Government data. US consumer price data for the same period will be released Thursday.
– Additional reporting AFP
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
