{"id":551084,"date":"2026-07-30T10:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551084\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:34:14","slug":"nz-sharemarket-plummets-1-53-market-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/551084\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ sharemarket plummets 1.53% \u2013 Market close"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fall can be attributed to a hawkish Federal Reserve meeting<\/a> and a strong local business outlook, \u201cwhich locks in an Official Cash Rate [OCR] hike in September after the inflation figures last week (rising to 4.1%)\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

But in a day of contrasting moves, Mainfreight surged $5.25 or 8.24% to a near seven-month high of $69. It sat at $69.57 on January 14.<\/p>\n

Mainfreight told shareholders at the annual meeting there was \u201cpleasing, cautious improvement across all regions, with NZ improving off the back of a difficult time in the past year, and Australia continuing to claim more market share\u201d.<\/p>\n

For the 16 weeks of trading to July 19, Mainfreight\u2019s transport division increased revenue 24.5%, warehousing was up 9.5%, and the air and ocean division improved 13.1%.<\/p>\n

The total revenue for the period was $1.855 billion, up 17.7% and profit before tax was $120.98m, up 78.1%.<\/p>\n

The US Federal Open Market Committee kept its funds rate in the range of 3.5-3.75%, but there were three dissenters, and investors worried that the Federal Reserve could be falling behind on the inflation fight.<\/p>\n

The bond market responded with the US 30 Year Treasury yield rising 10.5 basis points to above 5.2%, hitting its highest level since July 2007.<\/p>\n

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,153 points, or 2.19%, to 51,594.14 points, its worst single-day decline since April 2021. The S&P 500 was down 1.52% to 7316.15 points, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.74% to 24,4542.94, now more than 10% off its all-time high.<\/p>\n

Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) fell 7.45% to US$542 (NZ$933.43) in after-hours trading after increasing revenue to US$60.8b for the second quarter but reporting a 14% drop in net income to US$15.8b and earnings per share of US$6.18, below market expectations of US$7.22.<\/p>\n

Total costs increased 55% to US$42b, driven by US$2.4b in legal proceedings and US$1.1b in severance payments. Capital expenditure for the year is US$230b\u2013US$145b.<\/p>\n

Microsoft, however, increased 8.88% to US$425.21 after beating Wall Street estimates with revenue of US$90b and earnings per share of US$4.74. Its Azure service topped US$100b in revenue for the first time.<\/p>\n

Local stocks<\/p>\n

At home, the latest ANZ NZ Business Outlook survey <\/a>showed confidence jumped another 19 points in July to 56, while expected own activity increased 12 points to 49.<\/p>\n

But in responses received later in the month \u2013 after the OCR was increased and oil prices again rose \u2013 activity indicators were lower and inflation indicators higher.<\/p>\n

ANZ said the general theme was more optimism, with both business confidence and expected own activity at historically solid levels.<\/p>\n

But with oil prices extremely volatile, \u201cany thought that calm \u2018normality\u2019 will soon make a comeback is likely fading fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill businesses decide to just get on with their required investments and hiring? Or will the uncertainty see many batten down the hatches and go into survival mode? Time will tell; the consequences could be long-lasting,\u201d ANZ said.<\/p>\n

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was down 98c or 2.35%to $40.77; Infratil fell 60c or 3.91% to $14.75; Auckland International Airport decreased 17c or 1.91% to $8.75; Ebos Group shed 34c to $22.27; and a2 Milk declined 30c or 3.42% to $8.47.<\/p>\n

Fletcher Building decreased 13c, or 3.35%, to $3.75; Summerset was down 26c, or 3.03%, to $8.32; Ryman Healthcare shed 10c, or 4.37%, to $2.19; and Chorus eased 16c to $9.62.<\/p>\n

In the energy sector, Mercury was down 11c to $6.70, and Meridian eased 6c to $5.70.<\/p>\n

Freightways, decreasing 21c to $13.85, has appointed current director David Gibson as the chairman of the board to replace Mark Cairns, who is stepping down.<\/p>\n

Other decliners were Vulcan Steel, falling 40c or 6.06% to $6.20; Sanford, shedding 12c or 1.71% to $6.88; and Winton Land, decreasing 3c or 2.59% to $1.13.<\/p>\n

Serko increased 7.5c, or 5.43%, to $1.45; Vista Group was up 4c to $2.47; and Santana Minerals rose 4c, or 7.69%, to 56c.<\/p>\n

Oceania Healthcare was unchanged at 74c. The company held its annual meeting today.<\/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":"The fall can be attributed to a hawkish Federal Reserve meeting and a strong local business outlook, \u201cwhich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[190284,6326,138,651,2950,127,6097,3592,5345,225,15311,11692,111,139,69,156688,1125,184493,5424,13558,4518,72809,80],"class_list":["post-551084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-190284","tag-biggest","tag-business","tag-close","tag-confidence","tag-despite","tag-down","tag-fall","tag-increase","tag-market","tag-meltdown","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plummets","tag-sharemarket","tag-singleday","tag-street","tag-wall","tag-weeks","tag-weighed","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551084","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=551084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}