New Zealand’s market still very much feels like it has its out-of-office email on, with the local index seeing very low volumes and a conspicuous lack of exciting corporate news for investors to sink their teeth into today.
In currency land, it’s been a bit more exciting, with the US dollar continuing to edge downwards resulting in a much-needed boost for the NZ dollar.
Today, the NZ dollar was trading at 63.70 US cents at 3pm in Wellington after reaching 64-cent territory earlier in the day. The kiwi dollar was sitting at 63.59 cents at 3pm yesterday.
The S&P/NZX 50 index rose 18.8 points, or 0.16%, to 11,665.26. Turnover was a very light $105.7 million.
Harbour Asset Management portfolio manager Shane Solly said that NZ’s market remained “quiet” and was seeing very low volumes and a spot of wariness as investors waited impatiently for consumer price inflation data to come out of the US later this week.
Retirement village operator Summerset Group was down 0.5% to $9.22 after it told the market this morning that times are tough but sales are good.
The company said there were 277 settlements for the quarter ending Dec 31, made up of 139 new sales and 138 resales.
Index heavyweight Ryman Healthcare was also down 1.4% to $5.51.
Dairy giant Fonterra told BusinessDesk yesterday that its ability to collect and process milk hadn’t been affected by a temporary shutdown at Todd Energy’s Kapuni liquid carbon dioxide plant. CO2 is used in its manufacturing and packaging operations.
Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund units fell 0.9% to $3.28 by early evening, with A2 Milk also down 0.4% to $7.48 and Synlait falling 1.9% to $3.57.
Cancer diagnostics firm Pacific Edge had the best day on the index, jumping 8.2% to 53 cents and Kiwi Property Group also saw a lift, up 2.8% to 93 cents.
