Tourism Holdings stalls as NZ sharemarket ends week on high

The S&P/NZX 50 Index closed up 0.49% or 62.12 points, rising to 12,766.60, with 25.6 million shares changing hands worth $92.7m.

The S&P/NZX 20 index closed at 7,488.96, up 0.56%, while the S&P/NZX 10 index ended the day at 12,481.39, a rise of 0.46%.

There were 88 gainers on the main board and 47 decliners.

Interesting week

Craigs Investment Partners investment director Mark Lister said it had been an interesting week on the market, although the NZ sharemarket was still dragging the chain compared to those in other countries.

“We’ve seen reasonable gains from most other regions over the course of this week, but we’ve still been sideways at best,” Lister said.

“It’s good to finish the week on a positive note, but it has been a little bit quieter, I suppose, with the school holidays and with the US market closed being July 4th their time overnight. We’re all probably looking ahead to a busier week next week.”

Tourism Holdings speed bump

On the main board today, Tourism Holdings' share price faltered following updated guidance on its expected underlying net profit for the year.

The company said it would now come in at the lower end of the current analyst range of $27m to $34.4m. This reflected the challenges impacting global RV sales and, to a lesser extent, the US market.

Tourism Holdings’ share price fell 4c to $2.20 after 949,044 shares worth $2m changing hands.

Elsewhere, Infratil recovered its losses from Thursday, rallying 3.06% with 594,775 shares traded.

Inversely, Ryman Healthcare lost most of its recent gains, falling 1c to $2.34, with 1,616,435 shares worth $3.79m traded.

a2 Milk also had a strong day with $7.17m worth of shares changing hands, lifting its price to $8.77, up 12c.

Auckland Airport dips

Meanwhile, Auckland Airport fell late in the day with $8.59m worth of shares traded, dropping its share price 11.5c to $7.61.

Next week, more news on trade deals with the US is set to be released, and the international reporting season kicks off.

Reserve Bank scrutiny

Back home, the Reserve Bank will decide whether to cut or hold the Official Cash Rate once again, with Lister pushing for the former.

“People are looking ahead to that one, and it’s still highly likely we’ll see a pause, but I think there’s actually a strong case for them to cut next week.

“I suspect a lot of other commentators and economists would say the same thing because we still are looking very mixed out there in terms of the economy.

Wall Street

Wall Street stocks surged higher on Thursday following US jobs data that topped estimates as President Donald Trump’s massive tax cut measure neared final passage in Congress.

The broad-based S&P 500 jumped 0.8% to 6,279.35, a second straight record.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.0% to 20,601.10, also a record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.8% to 44,828.53.

The US economy added 147,000 jobs in June, while unemployment dipped to 4.1% from 4.2%, a sign of the US labour market's resilience despite the White House’s wave of tariffs.

“We have a nice rally going, and the reason for that is that the employment data was stronger than expected,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities, who noted the market overlooked that the job additions included a heavy share of public sector posts.

Markets also shrugged off data showing an uptick in the US trade deficit in May, with both imports and exports declining.

– Additional reporting AFP