Although it was a quiet day on New Zealand’s share market today, the country’s benchmark index didn’t appear to be feeling the post-Christmas blues on its first full day of trading since last week.

Today, the S&P/NZX 50 index rose 44 points, or 0.4%, to 11,539.31. Turnover was $59 million – not a lot but also not an insignificant turnover following the festive period.

Stephen Innes, a managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said US stocks had opened lower after the holiday buzz on Tuesday – but that didn’t appear to leak into NZ’s market today.

“Investors hoping for a year-end rally are likely disappointed as holiday cheer seems in short supply,” he wrote in a note this morning.

Innes described the US Federal Reserve’s ‘endgame’ plans in 2023 as top of the “wall of worry list” – a list that also included factors like inflation, growth, and the prospect of a recession in 2023 slipping into investors' dreams.

With the news of China reopening, Innes said that while the reopening could provide a “much-needed and timely boost to the global economy”, unwelcome and ambiguous strings could be attached.

In the domestic market, infant formula exporter A2 Milk bounced up today – up 3.1% to $7.40 by the end of the day. 

A2 Milk has had quite a recovery in the second half of the year, going from a low of about $4.40 in May to $7.18 by Christmas. It’s not just an increase in its share price of 23% but also the biggest gain of any company on the NZX this year.

Transport software company Eroad's shares rose 2.1% to 97 cents today.

Eroad announced last Friday that it would pay $19.5m in cash and shares to complete the acquisition of Coretex. The final price for the acquisition is $177.2m. Eroad will issue 1.8 million shares at $6 each and pay $8.5m in cash to the vendors of Coretex. 

Eroad initially bought Coretex in November 2021 for $157.7m, with an earn-out of up to $30.6m depending on certain milestones being met. 

Radius Residential Care jumped up 5.9% to 27 cents and NZ King Salmon rose 4.8% to 22 cents in light trading today.

Stocks that turned over a lot of value today were telco Spark, Auckland International Airport (AIA) and healthcare distributor Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. AIA edged down 0.6% to $8.08, Fisher & Paykel was up 1.7% to $22.42 and shares in Spark were flat at $5.345 each.

Today, the NZ dollar was trading at 62.64 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, down from 62.37 US cents last Friday.