“There’s this general sense of relief that you’ve seen through international markets around going past peak tariff and the US-China standoff being past the worst of it.”
The United States’ principal index, the S&P 500, is more than 12% up month on month, amassing its longest winning streak in 20 years.
Index constituents
Sigley said NZ blue chip stocks that had been “belted around” when market conditions soured were benefiting the most from the recovery in investor confidence.
In this basket, Sigley put Auckland International Airport and Infratil, which recorded gains of 2.13% to $7.90 and 0.81% to $11.17, respectively.
Precinct Properties was up 5.50% on high volumes to $1.15.
Mainfreight continued its rally from the end of last week, climbing 2.40% to $63.50. Compounding the improved sentiment, on Friday, the freight and logistics firm announced it expected its full-year profit and revenue figures for the year ending March 31 to be higher than the market consensus of $375m and $5.1 billion respectively.
Ryman Healthcare was up 2.56% to $2.40, having traded at a more-than-decade low of $2.21 last week.
One of Ryman’s largest shareholders, Australian investment fund manager Cooper Investors, has sold off at least 40 million shares over the six weeks.
“Ryman got hurt by that big sell down by Coopers and it’s taken a while to work its way through the liquidity. Now it’s starting to trade more on the fundamentals so that’s a good recovery,“ Sigley said.
The one major company in the red was Westpac Banking, which slid 3.09% after its half-year result for the six months to March 31 missed expectations.
Westpac’s New Zealand segment reported a 10% increase in net profit after tax of $525 million, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Smartpay
Of all 76 companies that made gains, it was Smartpay that locked in the largest lift.
The eftpos terminal and payments company’s shares rocketed up after disclosing one of its unnamed, prospective buyers had raised the offer price by 20% to $1.20 and successfully secured exclusivity.
After dropping back marginally, Smartpay ended the day up 18.34% at $1.00.
“Subject to them not finding anything crooked under the hood, it looks like that’s another small-cap growth name that’s going to exit our market,” Sigley said, adding he was surprised the price did not rise closer to the buyout offer price.
“To be honest, I would have thought it would trade close to that $1.20, but there’s been a few twists and turns in the story so far. Maybe that’s reflected in the price up there right now.”
At 5pm, Australian markets looked as if they were heading for a slight contraction with the S&P/ASX 200 down 0.82%.
Although riding high for a week, the NZX 50 is still down just under 5% for the year.
