{"id":294149,"date":"2026-02-20T22:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/294149\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:31:10","slug":"heavy-end-to-week-as-big-stocks-drag-sharemarket-1-lower-market-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/294149\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy end to week as big stocks drag sharemarket 1% lower \u2013 Market close"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salt Funds Management managing director Matt Goodson said the market felt heavy to end the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a couple of results out today, but not that hugely relevant to the market,\u201d Goodson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more just movements and other names that I think have taken the limelight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonterra shifted the midpoint of its 2025-26 farmgate milk price forecast<\/a> back to $9.50 per kg of milksolids from $9.00\/kg after recent improvements in commodity prices.<\/p>\n

The co-op also advised the market of its plan to pay a special dividend from the sale of its Mainland business<\/a>, in a range of 14-18c a share.<\/p>\n

Units in the Fonterra Shareholders\u2019 Fund lifted 1.89% or 15c to $8.18 with 254,228 shares trading, worth $2m.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Ebos Group fell ahead of its result out next week. Its shares were down 4.01% or $1.02 to $24.40 after trading worth $5.8m.<\/p>\n

Goodson said Ebos had been very heavy since its guidance warning several months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time it tries to poke its nose up, it seems to go back down again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Auckland International Airport continued its upward trend following its positive result on Thursday<\/a>, with its share price lifting 1.72% or 15c to $8.88 after 3.6 million shares changed hands on turnover worth $32.2m.<\/p>\n

Goodson suggested it could be one aggressive buyer chasing the stock after the result.<\/p>\n

Vector also reported its half-year results, with its net profit dropping by 4% to $113m.<\/p>\n

The company also announced plans to spend half a billion dollars in capex this financial year to June 30.<\/p>\n

Vector\u2019s share price fell 2.03% or 10c to $4.83.<\/p>\n

Fletcher Building, meanwhile, continued on its downward trend, falling 2.75% or 10c to $3.53.<\/p>\n

A2 Milk followed suit, dropping 2.62% or 30c to $11.17 after 1 million shares worth $11.1m were traded.<\/p>\n

As earning season rolls on, Goodson advised keeping an eye out for the results of Ebos Group, Heartland, NZME and Summerset Group.<\/p>\n

International news<\/p>\n

Oil prices rose to multi-month highs, while global stocks mostly retreated as markets weighed sharpening rhetoric from US President Donald Trump on Iran, suggesting a military strike was more likely.<\/p>\n

Brent oil futures finished up nearly 2% at US$71.66 ($120.52) a barrel after earlier reaching its highest level since July.<\/p>\n

Worries about Iran also dogged Wall Street, where major indices struggled in the red throughout the day.<\/p>\n

The Dow ended the session down 0.5% at 49,395.16, the S&P 500 closed down 0.3% at 6861.89, and the tech-rich Nasdaq closed down 0.3% at 22,682.73.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Additional reporting AFP<\/p>\n

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salt Funds Management managing director Matt Goodson said the market felt heavy to end the week. \u201cThere were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[53396,806,8834,138,651,8556,6097,3555,55414,8127,13988,6559,16774,68601,2513,1362,225,3025,111,139,69,36565,1125,544,643,28050,61,686,80],"class_list":["post-294149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-53396","tag-as","tag-big","tag-business","tag-close","tag-companies","tag-down","tag-drag","tag-dragged","tag-end","tag-gains","tag-heavy","tag-larger","tag-listed","tag-lower","tag-made","tag-market","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reversed","tag-sharemarket","tag-some","tag-stocks","tag-thursday","tag-to","tag-week","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}