Jarden Brief: Australian travel stocks rise on easing restrictions

Flight Centre was one of the top performers on the Australian market yesterday. Photo / Getty Images

Keeping you up to date with the latest market moves, in association with Investment firm Jarden

New Zealand:

The NZX 50 slipped 0.3 per cent during Monday's trading with the index finishing at 13041.3 points.

Utilities and industrials made gains of 1.0 and 0.1 per cent each, while healthcare (-1.3 per cent) and non-cyclicals (-1.2 per cent) weighed down on overall index movements.
Film software company Vista Group International was Monday's top performer, up 3.9 per cent. Joining Vista was Tourism Holdings (+3.2 per cent) and electricity retailer Trustpower (+2.5 per cent) to round out the single stock winners podium. Joining Vista was company Tourism Holdings (+3.2 per cent) and electricity retailer Trustpower (+2.5 per cent) to round out the single stock performers podium.

Trustpower traded higher amid the release of its 1H2022 results, with EBITDA up 11 per cent on 1H2022 with the impending sale of its retail arm seemingly doing little to dampen investor expectations.

In contrast, the a2 Milk Company again traded lower after its investor day appeared to underwhelm investors late last month, down 3.2 per cent. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 2.7 per cent, along with outdoor apparel retailer Kathmandu Holdings (-2.5 per cent).

Government-owned KiwiBank has sold its life insurance business (Kiwi Insurance) to ASX listed NIB Insurance for $45m. CEO Steve Jurkovich commented that the move aligned with the company's strategy to simplify its operations, and that current customers should have a seamless transition onto NIB's platform.

Additional market news includes Jim Delegat's announcement that he would step away from the Chairman role at NZX listed wine maker Delegat Group, where he would now move to the role of Executive Director. The move did not seem to be favoured by the market, with shares in DGL trading lower by 0.7 per cent.

International Markets:
US:

US markets were up at the time of writing. The S&P 500 was up 0.2 basis points, the NASDAQ was up 0.1 per cent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1 per cent.

Energy (up 1.2 per cent) and materials (up 0.9 per cent) were the sectors most responsible for lifting the S&P 500 during the session's trading.

The sectors with the biggest losses on the day were utilities (down 1.7 per cent) and consumer staples (down 1.1 per cent).

The day's best performing equities included semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices Inc (+8.9 per cent), copper producer Freeport-McMoRan (+6.2 per cent), and healthcare product manufacturer Viatris Inc (+5.5 per cent).

AMD moved higher amid a flurry of news about the use of its products. There were announcements about the use of its accelerator chip at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee alongside news that Meta will use the company's Eypc chip in its data centres.

The company said it also had plans to develop a 128 core central processing chip, aimed at cloud computing applications. Investors are backing the company to retake ground recently lost to competitor Nvidia.

Freeport-McMoRan benefitted from news that President Biden's US$1 Trillion infrastructure bill has been passed, along with rising gold and copper prices.

Veritas reported its third quarter results to seemingly pleased investors. Revenue of US$4.54 billion saw the total revenue guidance range for the year raised to between US$17.7 billion and US$17.9 billion.

The market lagging stocks included live events promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc (down 3.7 per cent), diversified holding company Ameren Corp (down 3.3 per cent), and real estate investment trust Kimco Realty Corp (down 3.1 per cent).

Live Nation has been named as a defendant in the lawsuit brought after the 'crowd surge' which occurred at a Travis Scott concert.

Ameren was driven lower by institutional selling and the accompanying poor sentiment. MetLife Investment Management LLC lessened its holdings in Ameren Co. by 9.4 per cent during the second quarter, selling 6115 shares.

Tesla was only down 2.9 per cent at time of writing, despite Elon Musk's Twitter poll asking whether he should liquidate 10 per cent of his holdings.

Rest of the World Markets

The popular Asian indices were a mixed bag at time of writing. The Shanghai index (China) was up 0.2 per cent; the Shenzhen index (China) was up 0.5 per cent; the Nikkei 225 (Japan) was down 0.4 per cent; and the Hang Seng (Hong Kong) index was down 0.4 per cent.

Commodities:

It was a relatively quiet session for precious metals. Gold was trading at US$1,822.90 per ounce (up 0.3 per cent); while silver was trading at US$24.4 per ounce (up 0.9 per cent). For industrial metals, the closest dated iron ore future was trading at US$94.43 per MT (flat for the session); the closest dated copper future was trading at US$9710.27 per KG (up 1.3 per cent). The closest dated WTI crude oil future was trading at US$82.07 per MT (up 1.0 per cent).

It has been a volatile session for crypto with Bitcoin trading at US$66074.48 (up 8.4 per cent) and Ethereum trading at US$4789.24 (up 7.6 per cent). The US 10-year treasury bond yield was trading at 1.4531 per cent.

Australian Markets:

The ASX 200 lost 0.1 per cent yesterday, breaking a three-day streak of positive returns.
Index heavyweights such as ANZ (-1.6 per cent), Macquarie Bank (-0.8 per cent), and CSL (-0.8 per cent) weighed on index returns, while Aristocrat Leisure (-2.1 per cent) also declined considerably.

Primary materials performed well – with energy stocks such as BHP Group adding 0.8 per cent, Beach Energy gaining 4.3 per cent, and Senex Energy adding 3.1 per cent after its board backed an almost non binding A$900 million takeover offer from Posco at A$4.60 per share. On the mining side, St Barbara (+5.2 per cent) and Perseus Mining (+4.4 per cent) helped alleviated downward pressure on the index.

Sydney Airport rose 2.8 per cent after the company recommended investors accept a binding offer of A$8.75 per share from potential acquirer IFM, lodged over the weekend. Investors are expected to vote on the deal in January. Competition law concerns have been floated however, with IFM investors already holding stakes in nine other Australian airports such as Melbourne and Brisbane airports.

Stockland Group, which owns residential housing, dropped 1.5 per cent after confirming that it would expand its office and logistics portfolios going forward, and reducing its retail exposure.

Travel stocks were the best performers of the day, with Flight Centre (+5.7 per cent), Qantas (+4.1 per cent) and Webjet (+4.8 per cent) climbing on the back of strong a Wall Street sector performances last week.

• For more information on the latest market moves, get in touch with Jarden.

Disclaimer: This Morning Brief has been prepared in good faith and reflects opinions and views at the time of publication, using external sources, systems and other data and information we believe to be accurate, complete and reliable at the time of preparation. We make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy, correctness and completeness of that information, and will not be liable or responsible for any error or omission. This Morning Brief is not to be relied upon as a basis for making any investment decision. Please seek specific investment advice before making any investment decision. Jarden Securities Limited is an NZX Firm, a broker disclosure statement is available free of charge at www.jarden.co.nz. Jarden is not a registered bank in New Zealand. Full disclaimer available at: https://www.jarden.co.nz/limitations-and-disclaimera>