{"id":360103,"date":"2026-04-02T09:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360103\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T09:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:59:10","slug":"markets-dip-as-trumps-war-speech-fails-to-inspire-market-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360103\/","title":{"rendered":"Markets dip as Trump\u2019s war speech fails to inspire – Market close"},"content":{"rendered":"Greg Smith, investment specialist with Generate, commented: \u201cI thought we would have plenty to talk about but Trump\u2019s speech fell flat. It was disappointing \u2013 not for what he said but what he didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were two major omissions \u2013 the prospect of a negotiated ceasefire or alternatively the likelihood of the US sending ground troops into Iran. Trump didn\u2019t deliver anything other than what had been doing the rounds over the past few days,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all a damp squib. Wall Street had rallied in the lead-up to the speech and now its futures were pointing to a 1% decline on the markets.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his speech, Trump said, \u201cWe are on track to complete all our military operations very soon. Operation Epic Fury was designed to never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon \u2026 that no-one has seen before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will hit them hard in the next two to three weeks if there\u2019s no (peace) deal. We will hit electric generating plants simultaneously but we will not hit oil and give them less chance for survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oil up slightly<\/p>\n
The Brent Crude oil price was up slightly at US$107.60 (NZ$188.45) a barrel, and the NZ dollar fell back to US57.09c against the American greenback after an earlier rise.<\/p>\n
At home, the early impacts of the fuel price spike were evident in the ANZ card spending data for March. Fuel spending was up 29.4%, mostly price-driven, and public transport spending increased 14.2%.<\/p>\n
ANZ said in early signs of other spending having to make way, there was a noticeable fall in hospitality and at second-hand goods stores.<\/p>\n
Overall card spending rose 1.2% in March (seasonally adjusted) and is up 6.2% compared with the same time last year.<\/p>\n
Local stocks<\/p>\n
KMD Brands crashed to a record low of 8.8c following its heavily discounted capital raise. Its share price was 19.5c when it went into voluntary suspension to finalise details of the raise. Its record high was $2.62 in October 2013.<\/p>\n
The retailer completed its $6.8m placement and institutional rights offer, raising a total of $44.2m. It is now seeking a further $21.1m through the retail rights offer which opens on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Other retailers Hallenstein Glasson was up 14c to $9.90, and Briscoe Group was down 11c or 2.37% to $4.53.<\/p>\n
Market leader Fisher & Paykel Healthcare shed 58c or to $36.70 on trade worth $20.78m; and Gentrack declined 21c or 3.10% to $6.57.<\/p>\n
Skellerup was down 10c or 1.89% to $5.20; Fletcher Building eased 6c or 2.03% to $2.89; and Vista Group shed 5.5c or 3.24% to $1.64.<\/p>\n
Contact Energy gained 16c to $9.38; Mercury added 11c or 1.78% to $6.30; a2 Milk increased 25c or 2.24% to $11.40; Ebos rebounded $1.04 or 4.74% to $23; and Ryman Healthcare improved 7c or 3.38% to $2.14.<\/p>\n
Channel Infrastructure, up 10c or 3.4% to $3.04, told the market it was working with the Government to add 93 million litres of diesel storage at the Marsden Point fuel import terminal within two months.<\/p>\n
Other gainers were Napier Port up 8c or 2.37% to $3.45; Port of Tauranga increasing 13c to $7.89; Property for Industry collecting 4c or 1.85% to $2.20; Vulcan Steel adding 15c or 2.31% to $6.65; and Metro Performance Glass rising 3c or 2.84% to $1.08.<\/p>\n
Synlait Milk, unchanged at 44c, has completed the $307m sale of the Pokeno production plant and two Auckland leasehold sites to Chicago-based healthcare company Abbott.<\/p>\n
Synlait will reduce its total committed bank facilities from $400m to $200m with the sale proceeds.<\/p>\n
Air New Zealand, unchanged at 43.5c, reported a 1.6% decrease in passengers carried to 1.219m in January compared with the same month last year. <\/p>\n
Short haul was down 2% to 1.06m passengers, long haul up 0.7% to 157,000.<\/p>\n
Domestic decreased 4.6% to 709,000, and the Tasman\/Pacific routes carried 353,000 passengers, up 3.7%.<\/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":"Greg Smith, investment specialist with Generate, commented: \u201cI thought we would have plenty to talk about but Trump\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[806,1135,138,651,15456,30276,97110,2178,1332,5504,71,65805,16609,225,220,13611,111,139,69,2572,71780,18916,9345,1361,61,19096,6149,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-360103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-australian","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-close","12":"tag-convinced","13":"tag-dip","14":"tag-dipped","15":"tag-donald","16":"tag-fails","17":"tag-following","18":"tag-from","19":"tag-inspire","20":"tag-iran","21":"tag-market","22":"tag-markets","23":"tag-nation","24":"tag-new-zealand","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-president","28":"tag-sharemarkets","29":"tag-sight","30":"tag-speech","31":"tag-that","32":"tag-to","33":"tag-trumps","34":"tag-war","35":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360103","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=360103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}