The S&P/NZX 50 index rounded out its worst month since June as the emergence of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence startup spooked investors around the world, prompting a rethink on the scale of infrastructure supporting the sector.
Still, the local market ended the month on an upbeat note, rising 66.63 points, or 0.5%, to 12,9950.1 on a turnover of $143.8 million, trimming the monthly decline to 0.9%.
Infratil was among those to fall foul of the DeepSeek sentiment, falling 11% in January as investors dialled back their previous ebullience about all things AI, from datacentres to the electricity generation powering that infrastructure.
That hasn’t deterred the likes of SoftBank, which is reported to be in talks to lead a US$40 billion capital raising for ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Infratil clawed back some of those losses as it rose 2.4% on Friday to end January at $11.21.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.4% in afternoon trading as tech stocks rallied on a relatively positive result from Apple, following on from gains for miners as precious metal prices push higher.
Vista Group International led the local bourse higher on the day, rising 4.5% to $3.24 after Craigs Investment Partners raised its target price on the stock by 33 cents to $3.75, pointing to a stronger US box office than expected, good progress migrating its client base to its cloud product, and a weaker kiwi dollar supporting its export earnings.
“While we see significant long term valuation upside from Vista's Cloud transition, we recognise investors are unlikely to pay full value for Vista until the company has built up a track record of revenue growth and margin expansion,” Craigs analysts Stephen Ridgewell and Rob Morrison said in a note.
Among other tech companies, Gentrack rose 1.6% to $12.71, and Eroad gained 0.9% to $1.08.
The day’s gains were widespread, with Vector rising 2.4% to $3.94, Ebos Group advancing $2% to $40, Port of Tauranga increasing 2% to $6.50, Skellerup climbing 2% to $5.09 and Vital Healthcare Property Trust gaining 1.9% to $1.875.
Tariff tremors
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 0.6% to $37.60. US President Donald Trump again threatened possible tariffs being imposed on Mexico, where F&P Healthcare has manufacturing, and Canada.
The tariff threat bolstered the greenback, with the kiwi slipping to 56.40 US cents at 5pm in Auckland form 56.51 cents at 7am and 56.55 cents yesterday. The kiwi’s on track for a 0.8% monthly gain.
AFT Pharmaceuticals rose 2.6% to $2.82. The US Food & Drug Administration approved its first non-opioid painkiller in decades – Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ suzetrigine – to treat moderate and acute pain.
Retailers were largely unchanged after the ANZ consumer confidence survey showed a pullback in households’ appetite to buy big ticket items.
Hallenstein Glasson Holdings declined 0.5% to $8.50, while The Warehouse Group, Michael Hill International and KMD Brands were unchanged at $1.03, 56 cents, and 40.5 cents respectively.
Colonial Motor Co was unchanged at $6.30 after saying it expects to report a 20% decline in first-half earnings, a smaller decline than previously feared.
Sky Network Television posted the biggest daily decline on benchmark index, falling 3.5% to $2.80.
Meridian Energy was the most heavily traded stock on a volume of 2.8 million, rising 1.2% to $5.90.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Curious News.
