NZ sharemarket closes lower as tech stocks buoyed by Oracle update

The New Zealand sharemarket was down on Thursday despite data centre owner Infratil being buoyed by the sharp share price rise by United States tech giant Oracle.

Thursday, September 11th 2025, 6:31PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index closed down 0.35% or 47.09 points, falling to 13,229.15, after 33.4 million shares worth $118.5m were traded.

The S&P/NZX 20 index closed at 7,654.47 points, down 0.37%, while the S&P/NZX 10 index ended the day at 12,779.57, falling 0.36%.

There were 54 gainers on the main board and 73 decliners.

'A lot of anticipation'

Generate Investment Management investment specialist Greg Smith said it was very split across the board.

“It’s really mixed here. Oracle’s announcement has obviously validated the tech side, but I suppose there’s a lot of anticipation, or probably even more relevance, on what the US CPI [Consumers Price Index] does tonight for our market,” Smith said.

Infratil continued its positive momentum after the news in the US of Oracle’s projected cloud revenue, growing the importance of data centre infrastructure.

Oracle’s share price has surged more than 36% after its update, forecasting US$18 billion (NZ$30.3b) in FY2026, with cloud revenue rising to US$144b in five years.

Infratil’s share price rose 15c or 1.20% to $12.60 after 703,029 shares changed hands on turnover worth $8.8m.

In other positive news, minor stock Scott Technology saw its share price rally 15.38% to $2.25 after it outlined plans to double its revenue by 2030 to $530m.

Elsewhere, Spark released its new five-year business strategy, refocusing the business on its core of connectivity from a broader digital services ambition.

The business also gave an update on the succession of chair Justine Smyth, confirming she will stand for re-election at the annual meeting in November, with the intention to serve for up to 12 months.

Spark’s share price fell 2.40% to $2.44 after 1.6m shares changed hands on turnover worth $4m.

Smith said there wasn’t much in the announcement that would stand out to investors, but suggested the previously announced sale of 75% of its data centre business could be giving away some potential upside.

“You’d have to think still that whilst it might be giving away some long-term upside to the data storage, the reality is building data centres is going to be expensive.”

Other stocks

Meanwhile, the share price of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the market’s largest company, fell 23c or 0.60% to $38.20 after 435,453 shares changed hands on turnover worth $16.6m.

Contact Energy shares also fell, dropping 14c to $9.21 on turnover worth $9.6m.

The S&P 500 finished at a new record on Wednesday (US time) behind a huge rally in Oracle shares as major US indices diverged ahead of key consumer inflation data.

Shares in Oracle surged more than 36% after the software giant projected huge revenue growth in the next few years as it prospers from the artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom.

Those gains helped lift the S&P 500 by 0.3% to 6,532.05, a second straight record.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index edged up less than 0.1% to 21,886.06, also a record, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.5% to 45,490.92.

US equities have been on a tear in recent sessions as markets anticipate a likely Federal Reserve interest rate cut next week amid signs of a weakening US employment market.

Those expectations were reinforced by a surprise 0.1% decline in the producer price index in August, according to government data. US consumer price data for the same period will be released on Thursday (UST).

– Additional reporting AFP

Tags: Market Close