Mixed bag for NZ stocks, with micro-cap firms the main gainers - Market close

Freightways, which owns New Zealand Couriers, rose 31c, or 3.53%, to $9.10. Photo / NZME

The New Zealand sharemarket made a small gain on a mixed bag of gains and losses ahead of the coming reporting season.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index dipped, rose and then dipped again in a trading day characterised by a lack of discernible character. It closed at 12,405.27, up 14.22 points or 0.11%, after reaching an intraday high of 12,441.5.

There were 65 gainers and 71 decliners over the whole market on volumes of 43 million share transactions worth $162.1 million.

Trading volumes rocketed at the end of the day to wrap up the month as traders sorted through their month-end rebalances and adjustments.

Before that, Blair Knight, the head of sales trading at Craigs Investment Partners, said it had been a slow news day and that trading had been “depressed” before the market closed.

The index remains up 5.2% for the month and has gained more than 5.6% for the year.

Most of the day’s top gainers were micro-cap companies, with Greenfern Industries and TruScreen Group rounding out the top two spots, rising 16.67% to 6.3c and 11.76% to 19c respectively.

According to Knight, the “highlight” of the day was Tower Insurance, which rose 4.5c or 4.19% to $1.12. Knight said he believed Tower’s success was due to Craigs initiating company coverage on Tuesday at an overweight position with a target price of $1.46.

He said Craigs’ private wealth network is taking an interest in it and that up until this point, it has not been a well-covered stock.

Hallenstein Glasson rose 32c or 5.71% to finish the day at $5.92.

Fletcher Building bounced back 2c or 0.65% to $3.12 after a tough couple of days following a negative market update. Late in the day, the company announced it had successfully completed a transaction to “divest 50% of its Fiji construction business”.

Freightways was up 31c, or 3.53%, to $9.10; Gentrack Group was up 39c, or 1.63%, to $10.50; Summerset gained 18c, or 1.63%, to $11.20; and Warehouse Group added 2c, or 1.44%, to $1.41.

Micro-cap companies also filled out the bottom rungs on the ladder, with the day’s largest decliner, Being AI, falling 5.13% to 37c.

Aged care specialist Radius Care dropped 1c or 4.65% to $2.05, still 11.41% above its $1.84 value at the beginning of the month.

Argosy Properties fell 25c or 2.31% to $1.05, joining Vital Healthcare, which dropped 4c or 2.06% to $1.90 and Heartland, down 2c or 1.83% to $1.07.

A2 Milk shares fell sharply to start the day before recovering to just 6c or 0.75% below the opening price of $7.93 on volumes of $4m. This was after a promising week for the stock, Knight said.

The big market news came from across the ditch, with the chance of an interest rate hike next week looking less likely after some mixed inflation data.

The Australian consumer price index rose by 1% in the second quarter of 2024, bringing annual headline inflation to 3.8%, above the March quarter figure of 3.6%.

This was largely anticipated, but the drop in “core inflation” from an annual rate of 4% to 3.9% was unexpected.

The market appears to have liked the news, with the S&P/ASX 50 rallying 1.29% to 7,940.30 two hours before the Australian close.

The NZ dollar jumped 1 cent to 91c against the Australian dollar after the data release.