New Zealand shares edged higher to start the week, with utilities and property companies leading the local bourse higher.
The S&P/NZX 50 index increased 5.10 points, or 0.04%, to 13,072.93, following a similarly tepid gain across the Tasman where the S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.1% in late trading.
Auckland Airport led the NZX50 higher, up 2.4% at $8.735 on a bigger volume than usual of 2.2 million shares, leading a clutch of utilities higher as Vector rose 2.3% to $4.02 and Meridian Energy increased 2.2% to $6. Genesis Energy increased 0.7% to $2.275.
Property companies were also broadly stronger, even as the yield on the 10-year government bond crept up 4 basis points to 4.46%. Stride Property rose 2.3% to $1.33, Kiwi Propety increased 1.7% to 92.5 cents, and Argosy Property advanced 1.5% to $1.03.
The local trading session was dominated by merger and acquisition activity across the Tasman, with New York-based private equity firm CC Capital lobbing in a A$2.9 billion offer for Australian financial services firm Insignia Financial.
Among the NZX’s prime candidates for a takeover attempt, Sky Network Television slipped 1.1% to $2.72.
Scales Corp led the benchmark index lower, falling 3.7% to $3.87. New Zealand biosecurity authorities are dealing with the discovery of a single male Oriental fruit fly in Auckland’s Papatoetoe.
T&G Global – whose controlling shareholder BayWa is whittling down its global footprint – dropped 4.7% to $1.43.
Steeling yourself
Fletcher Building dropped 3.1% to $2.80, while Vulcan Steel declined 0.1% to $7.99 and Steel & Tube Holdings fell 1.2% to 84 cents. On Friday, US President Joe Biden rejected Nippon Steel’s bid to buy US Steel over national security grounds.
Infratil declined 1% to $12.24 after saying its CDC Data Centres business has increased its forecast build capacity over the coming nine years and injected A$433 million of equity into the business in December.
The infrastructure investor’s 48% stake in the data centre business is now valued at between A$4.49 billion and A$5.39 billion.
Contact Energy was the most heavily traded stock today, falling 0.6% to $9.62 on a volume of 3.1 million shares, while Mercury NZ dropped 1.7% to $5.66 on a volume of 2.5 million.
The kiwi fell about a quarter of a Canadian cent to trade at 80.97 cents at 5pm in Auckland amid reports that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is increasingly likely to announce his resignation this week.
The local currency traded at 56.22 US cents at 5pm from 56.13 cents at 7am and 56.06 cents last week, and traded at 90.34 Australian cents from 90.21 cents on Friday.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Curious News.
