Auckland Airport takes off; NZ shares gain

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 78.63 points, or 0.6%, to 12,446.76. Within the index, 22 stocks rose, 18 fell and ten were unchanged. Turnover was $196 million.

Sam Trethewey, a portfolio manager at Milford Asset Management, said the market was consolidating after a period of rising interest rates and ahead of quarterly rebalancing.

Auckland International Airport led the market higher, up 4% to $7.67, followed by Spark New Zealand which rose 3.5% to $4.56.

Neither gave any market updates today, however, Air New Zealand said its domestic business and corporate travel had returned to 90% of pre-covid levels.

The update failed to give the airline’s share price any uplift, it dropped 2.3% to $1.68.

Corporate travel business Serko also declined 0.6% to $6.97, even though Air NZ’s update affirmed Serko chief executive Darrin Grafton’s expectation for post-covid travel.

Infratil approved the on-market acquisition of $20 million of shares by Morrison & Co executives which will be subject to a lock-up for between 12 and 24 months.

Chair Mark Tume described it as a “vote of confidence” in the infrastructure investment firm’s long-term growth, but shares finished the day unchanged at $7.

Internet utility firm Chorus saw the day’s biggest decline as investors continued to digest the latest update to the regulations surrounding it. 

Trethewey said Pushpay Holdings had continued to trade well after the Hulijch family sold its stake to US-based investor Sixth Street last Tuesday. Shares in the church management software company rose 1% to $2.

The kiwi dollar rose above 70 US cents as the negativity following the government’s housing policy began to dissipate. It was trading at 70.23 US cents at 5pm in Wellington, up from 69.84 cents yesterday.

The trade-weighted index was at 73.90 at 5pm, from 73.41 yesterday. The kiwi traded at 91.79 Australian cents from 91.51 cents, 77.26 yen from 76.50 yen, 59.70 euro cents from 59.28 cents, 50.99 British pence from 50.67 pence, and 4.6135 Chinese yuan from 4.5715 yuan.