NZ shares bounce back from bad week

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 56.3 points, or 0.4 percent, to 12,964.46. Turnover was $124 million.

Last week’s worst performers were among today’s best performers as bargain-hunting investors bought those stocks.

A2 Milk Company, which fell almost 7% last week after being dropped from an index, jumped 4.5% to $6.50 today, and Pushpay Holdings was up 3.4% at $1.52 having fallen more than 20% last week.

Similarly, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare climbed 4.8% to $32 winning back a 4% drop the stock was hit with on Friday. 

Plexure shares spiked sharply, up 14.3% to 52 cents, as it announced it would report its half-year earnings and host an analyst call on Wednesday.

The stock has more than halved in value this year, despite being given an ‘outperform’ rating and a $1.02 target price by Forsyth Barr analyst Jamie Foulkes.

Shares in Good Spirits Hospitality, a micro-cap stock worth $4.6m, jumped 16% to 8 cents on news it will acquire ten well-known venues from Nourish Group in a deal that will double the size of the business.

A strong operating report for the month of October sent Contact Energy shares up 1.8% to $8.08. Most metrics show improvement on the same month last year.

Meanwhile, Genesis Energy dismissed Contact’s idea of lumping all the country’s thermal electricity generation plants into one company dubbed ‘Waiting-To-Die Co’. Its share price also climbed 1.3% to $3.16, today.

My Food Bag was hauled higher by Milford Asset Management which reported they had bought another $3m worth of shares, bringing their holding to 8.7%.

The stock climbed 0.8% to $1.20 with investors encouraged by seeing an institutional fund buying ahead of its half-year earnings result due on Friday.

Infrastructure investor Infratil declined 0.9% to $8.16 today. Analysts at Macquarie said the risk and reward on the stock were “balanced” and gave it a neutral rating.

The biggest fall came from Ryman Healthcare which dropped 3.5% to $13.90 ahead of its earnings report on Friday.

The NZX announced today that software company TradeWindow will begin trading at 92 cents per share next Monday, giving it an initial valuation of $79.1m.

The soon-to-be listed company provides software for exporters, importers and customs brokers intended to improve their productivity.

The kiwi dollar was trading at 70.41 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, up from 70.19 cents yesterday.