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New Zealand shares rose, pushing the NZX 50 Index to an all-time high, as Kathmandu’s record earnings prompted analysts to lift their estimates, and investors bought companies with reliable earnings and dividends including SkyCity Entertainment Group.
The NZX 50 rose 54.136 points, or 1.1 percent, to 4764.723. Within the index, 22 stocks rose, 14 fell and 14 were unchanged. Turnover was $133 million.
Kathmandu, the outdoor equipment retailer, rose 8.5 percent to $3.45 a day after posting record full-year earnings and giving a bullish outlook statement. Forsyth Barr analyst Chelsea Leadbetter subsequently raised her earnings forecasts for the next three years.
“The result was a good one and better than what people were pricing in,” said Mark Lister, head of private research at Craigs Investment Partners. “We’re in a very buoyant market at the moment, with demand for good quality blue chip stocks providing safe dividend yields.
SkyCity Entertainment Group, which has a prospective dividend yield of 5.3 percent according to Reuters, rose 3.9 percent to $4.01. Telecom, which has a dividend yield of 7.1 percent, rose 2.7 percent to $2.32.
Trade Me Group rose 3.3 percent to $4.73 on speculation the auction website’s efforts to squeeze more earnings from its real estate advertisers will bear fruit.
Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund edged up 0.4 percent to $7.10 after the dairy group posted earnings that met its July guidance while warning of headwinds in the first half of the current year.
Chorus was the biggest decliner among companies shedding rights to their dividends today, falling 4.4 percent to $2.81. Other companies going ex-dividend included Nuplex Industries which fell 2.5 percent to $3.46, Fletcher Building down 1.1 percent to $9.59, and Michael Hill International down 2 percent to $1.47. Delegat’s Group and Goodman Fielder were unchanged at $4 and 81 cents respectively.
Sky Network Television rose 3.2 percent to $5.88 on turnover of $19 million, the most on the benchmark index today. The pay-TV operator has been traded heavily in recent days, and a substantial shareholder notice today showed Hyperion Asset Management lifted its stake in the company to 7.5 percent from 6.2 percent.
Xero was unchanged at $19 after the cloud-based accounting software developer said it had doubled its paying British customers to 30,000 in the past year. Last month, the company crossed the 200,000 customer milestone as it looks to crack one million paying clients.
Trilogy International fell 5.8 percent to 65 cents a day after it said it expected to post a first-half loss will probably be $514,000 in the six months ending Sept. 30, down from a loss of $782,000 a year earlier.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose 0.6 percent to $3.66 after the New Zealand dollar extended its decline today after government figures showed the country had the biggest trade deficit in August since September 2008. The manufacturer derives more than half of its earnings in US dollars.
(BusinessDesk)