Market close: SkyCity among biggest decliners as cyber attacks return

SkyCity was one of the day's biggest decliners, falling 13c or 4.3 per cent to $2.92. Photo / SkyCity

The NZX website went down again through a renewed cyber attack but the sharemarket kept trading and held its nerve, finishing the day with a slight drop.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index was down 19.79 points or 0.17 per cent to 11,770.75 – though in the final hour, it moved from positive to negative territory, having reached 11,805.96 or 0.13 per cent up.

There were 82 gainers and 52 decliners over the whole market, with 53.58 million shares worth $161.84 million traded.

A fresh distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack took the website off air at about 2.45pm, and it only came back online at 5.30pm when trading was finished.

Jeremy Sullivan, investment adviser with Hamilton Hindin Greene, said the NZX had ring-fenced traffic to the website for New Zealand users, and the cyber attacks stopped. But when it was reopened for international users, the move welcomed back DDoS attacks.

"It's got to be annoying for the NZX and the provider Spark," he said. "Spark has control of the international traffic through the domain name – and there are a lot of international investors wanting see the latest announcements and prices. About 40 per cent of the trading comes from offshore."

The index also withstood some gloomy consumer confidence figures – but it was at least buoyed by a better day on Wall Street. The Westpac McDermott-Miller Consumer Confidence Index fell to a low last seen during the global financial crisis in 2008. The index finished at 95.1 points in September, down from 97.1 in June.

Confidence has now fallen 14.8 points over the last three quarters, and Imogen Rendall, market research director of McDermott Miller, said "the impact of the local lockdown in Auckland is clear, with consumer confidence in the Auckland urban area now at 90.0."

SkyCity was one of the day's biggest decliners, falling 13c or 4.3 per cent to $2.92 following market talk that there was little chance of the New Zealand border reopening within six months – thus cutting out the casino operator's overseas high-rollers.

The market heavyweights again had fluctuating days – a2 Milk rising 36c or 2.03 per cent to $18.08 on trade worth $7.8m and Fisher and Paykel Healthcare falling 57c to $32.63 on trade worth $18.7m. Freightways was up 15c or 1.99 per cent to $7.70, Pushpay recovered 6c to $7.76, and Contact Energy gained 9c to $6.40.

Online travel provider Serko shot up 19c or 4.47 per cent to $4.44 after naming lawyer and digital entrepreneur Claudia Batten as the new chairperson, replacing Simon Botherway.

Air New Zealand was feeling more confident, having released 160,000 flights with passengers not having to bother with social distancing in seating – though they still have to wear face masks. The airline is now operating between 70 and 75 per cent of its domestic capacity, and its share price went up 1c to $1.355.

In the United States, the S&P 500 Index has corrected 7 per cent in the last six days, finishing at 3383.54, up 1.27 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.18 per cent to 27,993.33 and the Nasdaq had a bigger rise, gaining 1.87 per cent to 11,057.65.

The big technology gainers were Nvidia – which produces interactive graphics – gaining 5.82 per cent to US$514.89 ($766.74); Adobe increasing 3.09 per cent to $484.91; and Apple moving 3 per cent to $115.36. Electric vehicle maker Tesla shot up 12.58 per cent to $419.62.