“I sense the flows into our market over the last few days – the buying had been relentless - has reached the end of being invested and a few names are drifting,” he said.
The Reserve Bank is expected to hold the official cash rate (OCR) at 5.5 per cent, and Goodson said the wisest call for the bank ahead of the general election is to make a brief neutral statement on its current expectation and sit back.
In the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.62 per cent to 33,944.4 points; S&P 500 gained 0.24 per cent to 4409.53; and Nasdaq Composite was up 0.18 per cent to 13,685.48.
Across the Tasman, the S&P/ASX 200 Index has risen 1.27 per cent to 7093.2 points at 6pm NZ time.
Retirement village operator Summerset Group increased 17c to $10.30 after reporting 273 sales (126 new and 147 resale) for the June quarter – the resales were the highest in the company’s history for one quarter.
Summerset has made 483 settlements during the first half of the 2023 financial year and the company said the tough property market conditions appear to be easing. Uncontracted new sale stock decreased 17 per cent to 256 units at the end of December.
Goodson said Summerset’s quarterly sales were slightly below analysts’ forecast but not as bad as feared given the paucity of house sales. This means companies would struggle to close (settlement) on retirement units but Summerset brought a little bit of relief.
Fellow retirement stocks Arvida Group gained 2c to $1.25, and Oceania Healthcare was also up 2c or 2.63 per cent to 78c, but Ryman Healthcare declined 13c or 1.88 per cent to $6.80 after a strong run.
Infratil declined 28c or 2.74 per cent to $9.95 as investors digested the latest deal with Hong Kong telco HKT and Console Connect. Infratil is considering a $75m six-year offer of infrastructure bonds, with the ability to accept a further $50m oversubscriptions, to help repay a portion of a bridging loan to fund the purchase of One New Zealand (formerly Vodafone).
In the energy sector, Mercury declined 7c to $6.44; Meridian decreased 3c to $5.55; Genesis was up 3c to $2.725; and Manawa gained 5c to $5.
Chorus was down 7.5c to $8.13 after reporting a $7m impact on operating earnings (ebitda) with parts of its telecommunications network having to be replaced because of the recent flooding and cyclone. The full-year guidance was $675m-$690m.
Chorus increased fibre connections by 19,000 to 1.031 million in the fourth quarter and fibre uptake is now 73 per cent across its ultra-fast broadband footprint.
Freightways shed 12c to $8.41; Serko was down 11c or 2.77 per cent to $3.86; Seeka fell 11c or 3.77 per cent to $2.81; Delegat Group declined 15c to $8.80; and Precinct Properties decreased 3c or 2.32 per cent to $1.265.
Carbon Fund decreased 5c 3.57 per cent to $1.35; Burger Fuel shed 2.5c or 8.77 per cent to 26c; and CDL Investments was down 2c or 2.53 per cent to 77c.
AFT Pharmaceuticals, gaining 3c to $3.75, told the market it has launched two online stores in Australia and the United States through Amazon.
Fisher and Paykel Healthcare collected 21c to $24.21; Ebos Group was up 55c to $38 on trade worth $24.75m; Heartland Group gained 6c or 3.41 per cent to $1.82; Sanford added 8c or 1.97 per cent to $4.14; and Scales Corp increased 8c or 2.41 per cent to $3.40.
Other gainers were Channel Infrastructure adding a further 5c or 3.18 per cent to $1.62; Vista Group up 6c or 3.35 per cent to $1.85; 2 Cheap Cars rising 6c or 14.29 per cent to 48c; TradeWindow improving 1.5c or 5.26 per cent to 30c; Move Logistics collecting 3c or 3.66 per cent to 85c; and Allied Farmers up 2c or 2.94 per cent to 70c.
Lee Joo Hai is stepping down as a PGG Wrightson director “in order to eliminate the ongoing distraction due to media and market attention regarding the securities regulation matters that he is defending in Singapore.” PGG’s share price gained 4c to $4.21.
Karen Lake is moving from Ryman Healthcare’s regional operations manager to group general manager for Promisia Healthcare. Promisia’s share price was unchanged at 0.001c.
