Craigs Investment Partners investment director Mark Lister said the local market had taken its lead from Wall Street after early optimism surrounding the end of the 43-day US Government shutdown gradually wore off.<\/p>\n
The US closure has left investors with little economic data to form views on the state of the US economy, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, no one really feels like they know where the US economy is at with any certainty, and the US Federal Reserve is in a bit of a bind heading into its December meeting,\u201d Lister said.<\/p>\n
In addition, the ongoing debate on whether AI-related stocks had run too hard, too fast, was affecting sentiment.<\/p>\n
Transport and logistics firm Mainfreight gave up some of its post-result gains, ending 92c or 1.34% down at $67.58, but was still up 16% over the week after the market responded to a positive earnings outlook from the company.<\/p>\n
Brokers Forsyth Barr upgraded Mainfreight to \u201coutperform\u201d from \u201cneutral\u201d based on the company\u2019s positive outlook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first half was characterised by margin pressure across most operations, but this eased over the final two months as revenue growth accelerated,\u201d the broker said in a note.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis underlying business improvement is likely to continue into the second half, driven predominantly by accelerating Australasian activity reflecting new business wins and cyclical green shoots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Infratil, which also reported this week, dropped 19c to $11.78.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the two big heavyweights to report this week, Mainfreight was the one that everyone liked, but Infratil didn\u2019t get the same response, falling 4% over the week,\u201d Lister said.<\/p>\n
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the market\u2019s biggest stock, finished 39c down at $37.69.<\/p>\n
Meridian Energy, which holds an investor day on Thursday, fell 5c to $5.83.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, transport technology company Eroad lost 13c or 8% to $1.50 while cinema software firm Vista dropped 12c to $2.58.<\/p>\n
Among the smaller stocks, honey exporter Comvita closed 6.5c down at 53c after an 80c a share scheme of arrangement from Florenz failed to garner enough support from shareholders.<\/p>\n
The loss-making Comvita said it had notified its banking syndicate to request further support to provide time to recapitalise the business.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, a slew of annual and first-half results are due next week, starting with Sanford (full-year) and Serko (half-year) on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
There are also a number of annual meetings, including for Precinct, KMD Brands and a2 Milk.<\/p>\n
Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n