The NZX
Briscoe Group compounded Monday’s gains, lifting 3.1% to 5.99.
Robertshawe said the stock is continuing to benefit from joining the sharemarket’s main index in June.
“It shouldn’t happen this way, but it does, just because it’s in the 50, more people are looking at it, and so you’ll get more people researching it.”
New Zealand’s largest electricity lines company, Vector, rose 2.26% to $4.53.
According to Robertshawe, a couple of analysts from broking houses (“I think Forsyth Barr and Jarden”) have recently upped their longer-term forecast and valuations for the stock.
Tourism Holdings (THL) gained 9.09% to $2.16 on volumes worth just over $63,000.
The campervan company informed the market in June that it had received a buyout offer. The $2.30 per-share offer price represented a 57.5% premium over the trading price at the time of $1.46.
“It got under $2 when there’s a bid at $2.30 potentially just around the corner. That seems a bit wrong. So that’s not a surprising move,” Robertshawe said.
Another company that is potentially being taken over, Vital, was up 1.16% to 43.5 cents.
In June, Tait Communications, a Christchurch-based critical communications systems provider, made a formal offer to purchase the company for 45c per share and 13c per employee option.
A significant product holder (SPH) notice released to the NZX by Vital today showed Tait had upped its stake to 30.4%.
The US
Unlike the United States’ S&P 500 and the Australian blue-chip ASX 200, which are trading at all-time highs, the NZX 50 is still down nearly 3% for the year to date.
Overnight, President Donald Trump threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs and other financial penalties if the war in Ukraine does not end soon, in a meeting with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
That came after Trump said he would impose a 30% rate for Mexico and the European Union, which would kick in on August 1 if they did not accept better terms in the ongoing trade discussions with the two trading partners.
Robertshawe said a state of inertia had set in and that markets appear to be ignoring news that would, in normal circumstances, move global stocks.
“Risks are clearly higher than February. Even if a tariff is stuck at 10%, it’s still higher than they were before then. Earnings have been downgraded to 3% to 4% globally, and markets are at new highs.
“The market’s saying, ‘Despite it being riskier than it was, I’m happy to pay more for stocks’. And I think that is hard to understand from a fundamentals perspective.”
