WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares inched up on Tuesday, with Synlait Milk touching records, A2 Milk gaining after Synlait’s positive earnings and New Zealand Refining recovering. The S&P/NZX50 Index rose 5.82 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 7764.53. Within the index, 19 stocks rose, 19 fell and 12 were unchanged. Turnover was $157.6 million. Synlait Milk led the index, up 5.5 per cent to $5.54. The shares rose to a record high on intraday trading after the company posted an 11 per cent gain in full-year profit to $38 million and flagged further growth this year while signalling a move into branded consumer goods. “It certainly beat our expectations and I think it beat other analyst expectations as well,” said Peter McIntyre, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners. A2 Milk Co also gained, up 0.9 per cent to $5.89. The stock has gained 174 per cent this year, making it the best performer on the index. “It’s been breaking into new barriers all its trading life, a lot of analysts have got a really good view of it particularly after the presentation in Hong Kong,” Mr McIntyre said.
New Zealand Refining bounced after Monday’s selling, up 2.1 per cent to $2.44. It had announced a pipeline leak has disrupted jet fuel supplies at Auckland International Airport. “It has bounced back, the impact is going to be around $10 to $15 million on revenue,” he said. Air New Zealand dipped 0.5 per cent to $3.20. Its domestic and international flights have been disrupted, as the shutdown is limiting available jet fuel to about 30 per cent of normal usage. On Tuesday afternoon the carrier announced it had cancelled further international flights due to leave Wednesday. Spark rose 0.3 per cent to $3.82 while Contact fell 0.9 per cent to $5.42, Fisher & Paykel dropped 1.1 per cent to $12.15 and Vector declined 1.8 per cent to $3.24. Metro Performance Glass was the worst performer, down 2.9 per cent to $1.02.
