‘Heavy lifting’
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, down 20c to $39.01, saw $40.18m worth of shares change hands, and Auckland International Airport, easing 14c to $8.35, saw $50.95m worth of shares change hands.
The airport company released its Master Plan that outlined development to cater for 38 million travellers a year by the late 2040s, up from the present 19 million.
Jeremy Sullivan, investment adviser with Hamilton Hindin Greene, said it was a positive day on the local market to end the quarter.
“It wasn’t just the big names doing the heavy lifting – the rally was quite broad-based. And it was good to see that the business outlook has materially improved.”
Business confidence jumped 27 points in June to plus 37 in the latest ANZ NZ Business Outlook survey. Expected own activity increased 11 points from 25.6 to also sit at plus 37.
ANZ said the general theme of this month’s data was more optimism about the future, with both business confidence and expected own activity at historically solid levels.
However, the initial oil shock hit to confidence was still working its way through the economy, with the past own activity question drifting lower again this month, ANZ said.
“It makes intuitive sense that actual activity would take longer to turn around than confidence and expectations. That said, retail has rebounded, and manufacturing never fell.”
Reported past activity fell from 14.8 to 9.0, inflation expectations eased from 3.63% to 3.36%, cost expectations fell from 90 to 85, and pricing intentions dropped 6 points to a net 51% of firms expecting to raise prices, the lowest since November.
On Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.07% to 25,820.14 points as the tech stocks were back in favour.
The S&P 500 was up 1.18% to 7,440.43 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a new high after gaining 0.59% to 52,182.74. S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both finishing their best quarter since 2020.
Local stocks
At home, Infratil was up 11c to $15.43 on trade worth $22.98m; Freightways gained 31c or 2.28% to $13.91; Mainfreight collected 75c to $62.05; Fletcher Building increased 6c or 1.8% to $3.39; and Scales Corp rose 27c or 4.35% to $6.47.
Port of Tauranga hit a new high after increasing 20c or 2.3% to $8.90; a2 Milk gained a further 10c to $9.15; Summerset was up 17c or 1.99% to $8.70; Sky TV added 7c or 2.19% to $3.27; and Ebos Group collected 35c to $20.83.
In the energy sector, Mercury increased 23c or 3.45% to $6.90; Meridian gained 8c to $5.82; and Genesis was up 5c or 1.97% to $2.59.
Other gainers were PGG Wrightson up 8c or 3.69% to $2.25; Oceania Healthcare improving 2c or 2.7% to 76c; and Third Age Health adding 10c or 2.27% to $4.50.
Vista Group declined 7c or 2.89% to $2.35, and Winton Land was down 5c or 3.45% to $1.40.
Synlait Milk fell 4c, or 10%, to 36c after organising $320m in funding with a new syndicate comprising nine banks, seven of which are from China.
The refinancing includes a revolving credit facility for seasonal working capital of $146m, reducing to $86m on March 1 next year and $26m on June 1.
Serko, unchanged at $1.45, told shareholders at the annual meeting that booking volumes for the start of the 2027 financial year were slightly ahead of growth expectations and “we have not seen material impacts from the geopolitical environment on our core markets”.
The online travel provider confirmed the full-year income guidance of $128m-$134m, and expects total spending of $132m-$140m.
Air NZ, up 0.005c to 44c, announced a strategy reset that prioritises customers first, and targets growth and resilience and future-fit.
The national airline said it was delivering the cost-out programme with $100m of annualised benefits to flow from full-year 2027. Air NZ’s guidance of a $340m-$390m loss before taxation remained unchanged.
Investore, up 0.005c to $1.04, confirmed its full-year cash dividend of 6.5c a share at its annual meeting.
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