New Zealand’s main share index moved down in tandem with international markets as technology, banking and healthcare shares slipped with investors still wary about more potential interest rate hikes.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 23.69 points, or 0.26%, to 11,349.54. Turnover was $128.1 million.

Peter McIntyre, an investment adviser from Craigs Investment Partners, said banking stocks had done “particularly well” in the main index over the last six months but were having a poor day today.

“We've had quantitative easing over a period of time, and now the key buzzword is quantitative tightening – we’re going further down the alphabet,” McIntyre said.

Scott Technology was down 1.6% to $3.17 and technology provider Spark was down 1.3% to $4.79.

McIntyre said health stocks were also struggling on the index, which was a flow on effect that had been fed through by global markets.

Fisher and Paykel Healthcare was down 1.1% to $20.52 and aged-care giant Ryman Healthcare was down 1.4% to $9.53.

Plexure, the mobile phone marketing software developer, fell 4.6% to 21 cents today, after reporting a $24.1 million net loss for the year on Tuesday. The company is trying to turn around unprofitable service to its biggest customer, McDonald’s, under new leadership.

Pacific Edge also declined 2.4% to $0.81 after experiencing a big bounce yesterday from news that a giant healthcare provider had made it easier and faster to order its cancer tests.

NZ investors faced with the choice of following DGL onto the Australian Stock Exchange or simply selling their shares, appear to be choosing the latter.  

Shares in DGL Group fell 3.2% to $3.05 today and are down almost 5% since the chemical’s logistics company said it was delisting from the NZX last Friday. 

McIntyre said logistics and transport company Mainfreight had an excellent day with its shares up 2.6% to $80.

Meal kit delivery service My Food Bag was up 2.3% to 90 cents today. The company announced this afternoon that private equity director Chris Marshall, who has been with the meal kit delivery company since 2016, will step down from the board in August. Marshall has been with My Food Bag since 2016 and is one of its biggest shareholders.

The US dollar strengthened for the second trading day on jumping bond yields, said Tina Teng, CMC Markets analyst.

But she said commodity currencies – such as the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar – were relatively strong against the greenback, as there was more optimism over the easing lockdowns in China which was bringing a more positive economic outlook.

“The New Zealand dollar, however, weakened against the US dollar and its peers, on concerns that RBNZ’s aggressive rate hikes will eventually lead to an economic downfall,” she said.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) also announced today that its lifting its covid-era restrictions on banks paying dividends from July 1 – as long as economic conditions don’t worsen.

Back in the pandemic’s early beginnings in March 2020, RBNZ announced a complete ban on banks paying dividends because of the acute economic uncertainty the virus created.

ASB economist Mark Smith said in a note this morning that the Bank of Canada had taken the “path of least resistance” by hiking its policy rate by 50bps to 1.5%. 

“With inflation – currently 6.8%, yet to peak – the policy assessment flagged the potential for a faster pace of future rate hikes, providing a boost to CAD and Canadian yields and adding to market pricing,” he said.

The NZ dollar was trading at 64.72 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, down from 65.18 cents yesterday. 

The trade-weighted index was at 72.02, a shift from 72.31 a day earlier.

This story has been corrected to say which way the NZX moved in the second paragraph