WELLINGTON: New Zealand shares rose to a fresh record with New Zealand Refining Co and Fonterra Shareholders Fund gaining after the latter maintained its milk payout forecast. The S&P/NZX 50 Index gained 8.5 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,356.63. Within the index, 28 stocks rose, 17 fell and six were unchanged. Turnover was $172.3 million, a strong figure for a Monday. Rickey Ward, New Zealand equity manager at JBWere, said the market had seen 6.5 percent growth in July and investors were positive ahead of this month’s earnings season.
“There feels a bit more of a positive tone on the market despite having an unbelievable month last month,” Ward said. “It’s the second highest monthly return this year, around the eighth since 2001 and the fourth-best returning month since the global financial crisis.”
New Zealand Refining Co led the index, up 2.9 percent to $2.52. Comvita gained 2.4 percent to $11.55 and Skellerup Holdings advanced 2.3 percent to $1.31. Fonterra Shareholders Fund gained 1.8 percent to $5.79. The cooperative group kept its forecast farmgate milk price unchanged at $4.25 per kilogram of milk solids and said it expects earnings per share of 50c to 60c for the year ending July 2017. Fonterra also released proposed changes to the Farmgate Milk Price Manual for the 2016/17 season that would expand the basket of reference products it is based on, a change that could add 5 cents/kgMS.
Mainfreight gained 0.8 percent to $17.39, having advanced 0.9 percent on Friday following its annual meeting. Steel & Tube was the worst performer, down 1.4 percent to $2.07. Fletcher Building dropped 1.3 percent to $9.56 and Stride Property fell 1 percent to $2. Precinct Properties was unchanged at $1.255. The property investor has signed the Crown to a series of long-term leases across four of its buildings in Wellington which it says will generate about $500 million of income over the next 15 years. Outside the local index, Fairfax Media shares fell 1.2 percent on the ASX to A$1.0375 cents after writing down the value of its NZ assets by $ NZ100.51m.
