Gentrack sell-off drives NZ sharemarket down

The New Zealand sharemarket closed down on Wednesday, led by a sell-off of Gentrack and property stocks as the market reacted to Westpac’s home loan rate increase.

Wednesday, December 10th 2025, 6:48PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index closed down 0.62% or 83.72 points at 13,371.06 after 33.7 million shares, worth $137.4m, were traded.

The S&P/NZX 20 index was down 0.82%, closing at 7610.56 points, while the S&P/NZX 10 index ended the day at 12,757.23 after falling 0.82%.

There were 61 gainers on the main board and 84 decliners.

Westpac effect

Generate investment specialist Greg Smith said the market was down amid consideration of Westpac’s home loan rate announcement.

See rates here

The bank announced late on Tuesday that it would hike its two- to five-year fixed mortgage rates despite the Reserve Bank cutting the Official Cash Rate a fortnight ago.

“Obviously, there’s still a bit of digesting of what we expected. I suppose it’s still the prospect that they’re retaining some optionality, the Reserve Bank, through to February, and to see how the economy goes,” Smith said.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that Westpac are right. The Reserve Bank could well come out if things just plateaued and might decide we need one more trim depending on how they view inflation.”

Gentrack leads fall

Gentrack led the market drop for most of the day, falling 1.88% or 18c to $9.40 after two million shares changed hands, with turnover of $18.5m.

Smith said there was nothing specific leading the sell-off, and expected it to be flow-driven.

Elsewhere, property stocks such as Ryman Healthcare, Kiwi Property Group and Stride Property fell.

Ryman fell 2.09% or 6c to $2.81, Kiwi Property fell 0.47% to $1.05 after 3.8m shares changed hands, while Stride fell 0.71% or 1c to $1.39.

“I suppose that’s the property market’s reaction in terms of the mortgage rates and borrowing rates. Not particularly positive for interest rate sensitive stocks.”

Meanwhile, Infratil lost 2.05% or 24c, falling to $11.46, while Mainfreight was down 0.74% or 50c to $66.75.

Fisher and Paykel Healthcare also fell late in the day, declining 0.45% or 17c to $37.89 on turnover worth $21.1m.

Some on the rise

In more positive news, Ebos Group shares lifted 1.57% or 43c to $27.87 on turnover worth $3m, and Contact Energy lifted 0.11% or 1c to $9.29.

Hallenstein Glasson also held its annual shareholder meeting in Christchurch, sharing that group sales have lifted by 13.8% over the first 18 weeks of the financial year.

The lift was driven mainly by the Australian market, with chairman Warren Bell saying he expected the NZ market “to remain challenging, with cost-of-living pressures continuing to impact discretionary spend across the retail environment”.

Hallenstein Glasson’s share price lifted 3.02% or 28c to $9.56 on turnover worth $698,414.14.

International news

Wall Street stocks trod water early on Tuesday (US time) as markets digested mixed earnings reports and traded cautiously before a US Federal Reserve decision.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.38% to 47,560.29, the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.13% to 23,576.49, and the S&P 500 was down 0.09% to 6,840.51.

Among individual companies, Nvidia declined as markets digested President Donald Trump’s announcement of an agreement with President Xi Jinping to export some artificial intelligence chips to China.

PepsiCo was little changed after announcing a push to reduce costs and lower food prices under a deal with activist shareholders at Elliot Investment Management.

– Additional reporting AFP

Tags: Market Close