Matt Goodson, managing director of Salt Funds Management, said the local market belied the extreme volatility in the United States, Asia and Australia.
“It proves the low beta nature of the NZ market,” he said.
“We were a little stronger under the hood as heavyweight Fisher & Paykel Healthcare weighed on the overall performance of the index.”
At 6pm NZ time, the S&P/ASX 200 Index was up 1.92% to 8875.7 points after falling 2% on Friday, and the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index had gained 1.45% to 26,945.35 points.
The Nikkei 225 had risen 4.15% to 56,507.08 points after Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi won a landmark election victory, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party gaining two-thirds of the 465-seat lower house.
In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average burst through the 50,000 milestone for the first time after gaining 1206 points or 2.47% to 50,115.67. The S&P 500 was up 1.97% to 6932.3 points, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.18% to 23,031.21, led by Nvidia up 7.92% to US$185.41 ($308.30).
Goodson said there have been differing views on the volatility of gold and bitcoin, and on the sudden emergence of the Anthropic Claude Legal AI tool and its impact on a range of software firms.
Local stocks
At home, Freightways hit the $15 mark for the first time with a gain of 36c or 2.46%. Goodson said Freightways was a strong cyclical stock exposed to the NZ economy, and it has reached a new benchmark.
Skellerup Holdings rose 42c or 8.08% to $5.62, buoyed by a broker upgrade and the expectation it will produce another solid half-year financial result later this week.
Skellerup’s highest close was $6.49 in early February 2022.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 62c or 1.7% to $39.28 on trade worth $22.39m, and Chorus declined 35c or 3.66% to $9.20.
Goodson said Chorus had been very strong of late, while other low-growth, high-yield stocks have been weak due to rising long-term interest rates.
“Today, for whatever reason, Chorus is down more than 3%.”
Infratil collected 21c or 1.94% to $11.04; Vista Group recovered 9c or 4.97% to $1.90; Gentrack was up 24c or 3.43% to $7.24; Heartland added 2.5c or 2.02% to $1.26; Scales Corp gained 12c or 2.04% to $6; and T&G Global rose 10c or 3.88% to $2.68.
Pacific Edge increased 1.9c or 10.22% to 20.5c after telling the market that US Medicare contractor Novitas is meeting on February 20 (NZ time).
Opinions expressed there will influence the language Novitas uses in any draft local coverage determination covering Medicare reimbursement of Cxbladder tests.
Goodson said the expert panel hearing would be critical to Medicare coverage decisions. It’s been a long and winding road for Pacific Edge, and all the signs going into the meeting have been positive.
Manuka Resources fell 6.5c or 29.55% to 15c after a Fast-track Approvals expert panel declined the consent application by subsidiary TransTasman Resources to harvest iron sands, for vanadium concentrate, off Taranaki.
Manuka and TransTasman have until February 19 to comment on the draft decision. TransTasman executive chairman Alan Eggers said; “I find it difficult to accept that the expert panel intends to decline the project environmental approvals with concerns on almost every aspect”.
Amongst other mining stocks, Santana Minerals was up 4.5c or 3.85% to $1.21, and Minerals Exploration was down 1.5c or 5.77% to 24.5c.
Sanford decreased 15c or 2.03% to $7.25; Serko shed 8c or 3.04% to $2.55; Sky TV was down 8c or 2.46% to $3.17; Napier Port eased 10c or 2.64% to $3.69; and Blackpearl Group declined 7.5c or 6.38% to $1.10.
Rakon was up 3.5c or 2.46% to $1.45 after receiving the formal takeover offer from US electronics company Bourns at $1.55 a share. Rakon will issue an independent adviser’s report on February 23.
Locate Technologies, down 0.001c or 73c, reported second-quarter revenue of $1.88m and a loss of $829,000 in operating earnings (ebitda). The loss included a one-off cost of $464,000 for the transition from the ASX to the NZX.
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