Scott Technology, which was up 10 per cent on Thursday, had another solid day and rose 10 cents or 3.3 per cent to $3.10 by the close.
The automation and robotics company told the market on Thursday that it was “exploring options to maximise value for all shareholders”.
This followed discussions with majority shareholder JBS, which owns 53 per cent of the Dunedin-based company.
Sullivan said Scott Technology’s stock was up 16 per cent in the past two trading days.
“They’re probably one of the best performers this week.”
Channel Infrastructure was up 2.1 per cent to $1.44 after announcing it had entered into a long-term fixed price variable volume contract for the supply of renewable electricity.
Foley Wines chief executive Mark Turnbull told the market that the company had completed its harvest for the 2023 vintage, bringing in 8137 tonnes across its Marlborough, Martinborough, and Mt Difficulty wineries. This was down 12 per cent on the 2022 harvest of 9203 tonnes but a 46 per cent increase on the 2021 harvest of 5582 tonnes. Its shares were unchanged at $1.18.
ASB senior economist Nat Keall said in a commodities weekly note that economic data out of Chinese had “continued to disappoint”.
Although China’s retail sales rose 12.7 per cent year-on-year, they were below expectations of a 13.6 per cent lift and down from the 18.4 per cent annual growth in March, he said.
“We retain our view that any growth in demand for key NZ primary exports from China won’t be sufficient to offset weaker demand from elsewhere.”
A2 Milk rose 8 cents, or 1.4 per cent, to $5.63, and Synlait Milk was down 7 cents (4 per cent) to $1.70.
Both companies have major interests in China.
Scales was down 9 cents, or 2.8 per cent, to $3.18.
Smartpay Holdings said it was investigating a ransomware security incident that happened on June 10, affecting some of its systems.
The eftpos equipment supplier told the market its “ongoing” investigation had confirmed that “criminals have stolen information pertaining to a group of customers in Australia and NZ from our NZ systems”.
The stock was down 7 cents, or 3.9 per cent, to $1.735 by early evening.
Sullivan said utilities had weighed down the index during the day, although many managed to scrape into the positive territory by the close.
Meridian Energy was up 3 cents, or 0.7 per cent, to $5.42, Vector edged up 2 cents, or 0.5 per cent, to $4.01 and Mercury rose 3.5 cents, or 0.6 per cent, to $6.365.
Contact Energy was flat at $7.83 per share.
Genesis Energy fell 4 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $2.70 and Manawa Energy was down 2 cents, or 0.4 per cent, to $4.73 and Infratil was down 24.5 cents, or 2.5 per cent, to $9.625.
“Ryman, which has had a nice recovery over the past few trading sessions, has come off the boil a little bit as well,” Sullivan said.
Ryman Healthcare was down 14 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $6.29. Oceania Healthcare fell 2.6 per cent to 76 cents.
Summerset Group edged down 1 cent to $9.15.
Offsetting today’s decliners and doing much of the index’s heavy lifting were big stocks like Ebos Group, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Mainfreight.
Mainfreight was up 85 cents, or 1.2 per cent, to $72.40, F&P Healthcare rose 71 cents, or 3 per cent, to $24.58 and Ebos Group jumped 2.5 per cent to $36.60.
NZ Automotive Investments announced the company’s name was changing to 2 Cheap Cars Group effective from June 26.
The stock was down 1.5 cents, or 5.2 per cent, to 27.5 cents.
My Food Bag was up for the third day in a row, rising 1.1 cents, or 6.3 per cent, to 18.6 cents.
Sullivan said the meal kit company was a “relatively liquid stock” that could be pushed around, and was trading back to the levels it recorded after the release of its full-year results in May.
On the currency front, the NZ dollar was trading at 62.40 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, from 61.63 cents on Wednesday.
