Market close: Travel and leisure stocks rise on Covid vaccine news

News that a Covid vaccine is just around the corner provided a boost to the visitor sector. Photo / Getty Images

The lifestyle stocks that had been knocked about by Covid-19 – travel, tourism, hospitality, leisure and wine – came alive on news that a vaccine was just around the corner, providing hope that the visitor sector will pick up.

The New Zealand sharemarket had a wild ride with the S&P/NZX 50 Index opening the day more than 2 per cent ahead after a big night on Wall Street, but running out of puff and closing with a gain of 50.19 points or 0.4 per cent to 12,612.39.

The record intraday high was 12,840.04, and respirator maker Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, which has done so well during the Covid period, took a hammering.

Investors were in boots and all buying and selling, with a huge volume of 92.4 million shares worth $345.84 million changing hands. There were 108 gainers and 39 decliners over the whole market of 181 stocks.

The announcement by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech caused the investing flurry. They said its vaccine, following the stage 3 clinical trial, was 90 per cent effective in protecting people against Covid-19.

Jeremy Sullivan, investment adviser with Hamilton Hindin Green, said investors may have got ahead of themselves and there's still plenty of water to go under the bridge in developing the vaccine.

"The vaccine needs to be peer reviewed and it needs US Food and Drug Administration approval. The milestone will be in two months time when they report back on any side effects involving the vaccine.

"Later in the day, the Chinese said their vaccine had caused adverse reaction with some of the 60,000 people tested and their trial has been halted. The market then started giving back all its gains," Sullivan said.

In the United States, the counter-cyclical travel and leisure stocks made big gains and the Covid growth stocks were hit. New Zealand followed suit. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare plunged $4.52 or 12.23 per cent to $32.43 on trade worth $37m, while Pushpay Holdings fell 49c or 5.77 per cent to $8. Ebos Group was down 33c to $25.55.

Auckland International Airport climbed 49c or 6.89 per cent to $7.60; Air New Zealand was up 12c or 8 per cent to $1.62; Tourism Holdings gained 27c or 11.59 per cent to $2.60; SkyCity increased 23c or 7.67 per cent to $3.23; travel software company Serko rose 46c or 9.13 per cent to $5.50; and cinema software firm Vista Group was up 30c or 20 per cent to $1.80.

Millennium and Copthorne Hotels increased 11c or 6.11 per cent to $1.91; Kiwi Property which owns shopping destination Sylvia Park gained 5c or 4.03 per cent to $1.29; and the wine companies Delegat Group and Foley Wines were up 27c to $14.92 and 3c to $1.87 respectively. Manuka honey producer Comvita, another visitor destination, rose 8c or 2.53 per cent to $3.24.

Fletcher Building, which has languished since reaching a low of $3.15 on March 23, climbed 69c or 15.33 per cent to $5.19 after reporting a positive four-month trading period ending October.

Fletcher's group revenue was up 1 per cent compared with the same period last year, and its earnings before interest and tax increased $80m or 55 per cent to $227m.

New Zealand Herald publisher NZME rose 5c or 8.06 per cent to 67c as its earnings improve. EROAD, which has developed an electronic solution to manage and pay road user charges, climbed 21c or 4.96 per cent to $4.44.

Vital Healthcare Property Trust, which is upgrading two private hospitals and developing a health hub in Australia, rose 7c or 2.36 per cent to $3.03 after reporting a 30.4 per cent increase in operating profit for the first quarter of the 2021 financial year. Other property stocks joined in the action, with Precinct up 5c or 2.84 per cent to $1.80 and Stride rising 9c or 4.02 per cent to $2.28.

In the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new intraday high of 29,933.83 before closing 834 points or 2.95 per cent ahead at 29,157.97. The S&P 500 Index gained 1.17 per cent to 3550.50 after also reaching a record high, and the Nasdaq Composite finished up falling 1.53 per cent to 11,713.78.