Shane Solly, portfolio manager with Harbour Asset Management, said the local market had a better outcome than expected – after it was reported that Russia had reached out to China over the Ukraine conflict and this knocked sentiment overseas.
"There is pain in the household and business budgets because of the sharp rise in commodity prices and the move to reduce the fuel tax will take some pressure off.
"Globally, we have seen weakness in the consumer stocks because of the increase in the cost of living and this has been weighing on the likes of Restaurant Brands and others," Solly said.
"On the other hand, banks will be operating in a better environment with the increase in interest rates and they will get some margin expansion."
Solly said changes in the S&P and FTSE global indices will create further volatility later this week as investment managers rebalance their holdings. EBOS Group is going into the FTSE Global All Cap Index, while Contact and Meridian Energy will have lower weightings.
Contact and Meridian have been benefitting from growth in the iShares Global Clean Energy indices but that growth slowed in the last week, removing some of the buying support.
Contact, which went ex-dividend last week, was down 5c to $7.88, while Meridian was up 3.5c to $5.145. EBOS Group climbed 93c or 2.51 per cent to $37.99; and Restaurant Brands fell 40c or 22.81 per cent to $13.85.
ANZ Banking Group increased 80c or 2.9 per cent to $28.40; Westpac Banking Corporation gained 53c or 2.18 per cent to $24.85; and Heartland Group Holdings was up 2c to $2.09.
Skellerup Holdings was down 15c or 2.78 per cent to $5.24 after it was disclosed to the market late on Friday that its chief executive David Mair sold 700,000 of the company shares for a return of $3.812m. Mair reduced his holding from 5.5m shares to 4.8m.
Solly said Mair had some chunky personal exposure and his move took some heat out of the stock. Skellerup had lately delivered a solid earnings result and Mair still has a meaningful stake in the business.
Market leader Fisher and Paykel Healthcare was down 25c to $26.88; a2 Milk declined 9c to $5.56; Port of Tauranga shed 6c to $6.14; South Port New Zealand fell 35c or 4.13 per cent to $8.12; and Scales Corporation decreased 15c or 3 per cent to $4.85.
Vista Group continues to flounder, down 6c or 3.43 per cent to $1.69 despite the return of box office numbers in the United States.
Freightways shed 17c to $11.43; PGG Wrightson declined 9c or 1.8 per cent to $4.92; and Synlait Milk was down 6c or 1.85 per cent to $3.19.
Sanford increased 16c or 3.47 per cent to $4.77; Vector Energy was up 10c or 2.65 per cent to $3.88; Turners Automotive gained 6c to $4.30; Tourism Holdings rose 13c or 5.28 per cent to $2.59; and Fonterra Shareholders' Fund collected 8c or 2.39 per cent to $3.43.
Delegat Group increased 23c to $13.25; Gentrack collected 5c or 3.13 per cent to $1.24; DGL Group rose 12c or 4 per cent to $3.12; and New Zealand Oil & Gas was up 2c or 3.6 per cent to 57.5c.
Online travel provider Serko, up 6c to $4.77, has confirmed its full-year revenue guidance of $18m-$20.5m after experiencing positive transaction growth with Australian business reaching 60 per cent of the 2019 volumes.
Booking.com for Business volumes – with more than 400,000 registered companies - have been increasing each week since late January and in the past five trading days jumped to more than 130 per cent of the October volumes. New Zealand business has remained suppressed.
Z Energy, under takeover by Ampol, told the market that fuel distributor Gull New Zealand would be sold to Australian investment manager Allegro Funds for $572m. The net proceeds of $509m would be used by Ampol to buy Z Energy – the scheme of arrangement still needs the approval of the Commerce Commission and Overseas Investment Office. Z Energy's share price gained 4c to $3.67.
