NZX rebound continues, Precinct Properties up 5.5%

New Zealand shares have continued their green streak as composure returns to markets following an unruly April.

Monday, May 5th 2025, 6:17PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 index was up 0.76% to 12,421.250 points on Monday, extending its run to four consecutive days and firmly putting “Liberation Day” losses behind it.

Just over 28.6 million shares changed hands, amounting to $89.4m in value traded.

Peter Sigley, director of institutional sales at Forsyth Barr, said that market nerves are beginning to settle a month after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs.

“There's this general sense of relief that you've seen through international markets around going past peak tariff and the US-China standoff being past the worst of it.”

The United States' principal index, the S&P 500, is up by over 12% month-on-month, amassing its longest winning streak in 20 years.

Index constituents

Sigley said NZ blue-chip stocks that had been “belted around” when market conditions soured were benefiting the most from the recovery in investor confidence.

In this basket, Sigley put Auckland International Airport and Infratil, which recorded gains of 2.13% to $7.90 and 0.81% to $11.17, respectively.

Precinct Properties was up 5.50% on high volumes to $1.15.

Mainfreight continued its rally from the end of last week, climbing 2.40% to $63.50.

Compounding the improved sentiment, on Friday, the freight and logistics firm announced it expected its full-year profit and revenue figures for the year ending March 31 to be higher than the market consensus of $375m and $5.1 billion, respectively.

Ryman Healthcare was up 2.56% to $2.40, having traded at a more-than-decade low of $2.21 last week.

One of Ryman’s largest shareholders, Australian investment fund manager Cooper Investors, has sold off at least 40 million shares over the six weeks.

“Ryman got hurt by that big sell down by Coopers, and it's taken a while to work its way through the liquidity. Now it's starting to trade more on the fundamentals, so that's a good recovery,“ Sigley said.

The one major company in the red was Westpac Banking, which slid 3.09% after its half-year result for the six months to March 31 missed expectations.

Westpac’s NZ segment reported a 10% increase in net profit after tax of $525m, compared with the same period a year earlier.

Smartpay

Of all 76 companies that made gains, Smartpay locked in the largest lift.

The eftpos terminal and payments company's shares rocketed up after disclosing one of its unnamed, prospective buyers had raised the offer price by 20% to $1.20 and successfully secured exclusivity.

After dropping back marginally, Smartpay ended the day up 18.34% at $1.00.

“Subject to them not finding anything crooked under the hood, it looks like that's another small-cap growth name that's going to exit our market,” Sigley said, adding he was surprised the price did not rise closer to the buyout offer price.

“To be honest, I would have thought it would trade close to that $1.20, but there's been a few twists and turns in the story so far. Maybe that's reflected in the price up there right now.”

At 5pm, Australian markets looked as if they were heading for a slight contraction with the S&P/ASX 200 down 0.82%.

Though riding high for a week, the NZX 50 is still down just under 5% for the year.

Tags: Market Close