The consent numbers accounted for 56 per cent of the 50,209 residential consents for the 12 months to November and Stats NZ said consent approvals for multi-unit homes had ratcheted up by almost a quarter to 28,364 units for the year.
Standalone houses on the other hand fell 15 per cent to 21,845 over the same period. Overall consent numbers saw a 3.2 per cent jump on the comparable period which was largely led by townhouse developments in Auckland.
Solly said that had seen a recovery in some housing-related stocks.
Fletcher Building rose 90c or 1.84 per cent to close on $4.99 although it remains down over 30 per cent since a year ago.
Vulcan Steel also had a good day, rising 38c or 4.27 per cent to $9.28.
Solly said that strength had also flowed through to some of the other cyclical stocks like Mainfreight which had a better day.
“They have been under pressure, they have come back quite a long way.”
There were 86 stocks which gained in value while 39 declined on volume traded of 27,628,892.
Solly said trading was lighter than normal, even for this time of year and believed some people were holding back ahead of the United States consumer price inflation data that was due out early Friday morning NZ time.
Devon Fund Management’s head of retail Greg Smith said markets generally had had a good start to the year, with investors trying to put 2022 behind them.
He said if the first five trading days of the year went well that was normally a good sign for the rest of the year historically.
Smith said inflation and interest rates were very much in focus, with the US CPI number very important.
“There will be a lot hanging on that.”
Ebos Group also hit a record high with speculation it could move from the MSCI small cap index to the MSCI standard index. That was due to be announced on February 10.
Ebos closed up 21c or 0.46 per cent on $45.62.
Contact Energy was the most traded stock by value, followed by Ebos and Spark.
My Food Bag saw one of the biggest declines with its shares down 1.5c or 3.75 per cent to 38.5c. PGG Wrightson also fell, declining 17c or 3.66 per cent to $4.48 while property stock Investore fell 5c or 3.25 per cent to $1.49.
Contact shares fell 16c or 2.02 per cent to $7.76 while Spark shares rose 4c or 0.77 per cent to $5.25.
The Australian market had a stronger day. As of 6pm New Zealand time the S&P/ASX200 was up 78.4 points or 1.09 per cent to 7,273.7 setting a new 20 day high. The top-performing stocks were Liontown Resources and Pilbara Minerals, which were up 4.33 per cent and 3.89 per cent respectively.
Over the last five days the index has gained 2.97 per cent although it remains 2.22 per cent down for the last 52 weeks.
