Air NZ tumbles to new low as fuel costs mount; NZX50 slides

Xero slides on the ASX as US push knocks bottom line.

Thursday, May 14th 2026, 6:32PM

by Paul McBeth

Air New Zealand tumbled to a fresh low after warning of mounting losses on rising jet fuel costs, leading the S&P/NZX 50 index lower in a broadly softer day across Asia.

Investors across the region looked ahead to the summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with the late addition of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang raising expectations of a breakthrough on sales of semiconductors to Asia’s biggest economy.

Locally, soft housing figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand weighed on retirement village operators Ryman Healthcare and Summerset Group Holdings, with second-tier bank Heartland Group Holdings near the bottom of the leaderboard.

And across the Tasman, Kiwi expat accounting software firm Xero was on track for its sharpest daily decline in more than a month as its Melio acquisition to accelerate US growth dented the company’s annual profit.

Crash landing

The NZX50 fell 37.99 points, or 0.3%, to 13,025.07, with 29 stocks declining, 16 gaining, and five unchanged. The S&P/NZX 20 index futures contract for June fell 0.2% to 7,434 with 60 lots traded for a value of $445,000, while the NZX20 slipped 0.2% to 7,408.23.

Turnover across the main board was $146.7 million, of which Infratil accounted for $19.3 million as the infrastructure investor rose 0.5% to $15.23 after another strong showing from tech companies on the Nasdaq overnight.

Air New Zealand led the benchmark index lower, sinking 5.8% to 40.5 cents after warning rocketing jet fuel prices meant it faced a pre-tax loss of between $340 million and $390 million in year ending June 30. The national carrier said it had available liquidity of $1.3 billion and wasn’t contemplating any capital transactions.

The carrier, which is among the most widely held securities by Sharesies’ one million customers, was the most heavily traded stock on the day with a volume of 3.1 million.

“Air New Zealand is certainly at the wrong end of things with fuel prices,” said Greg Smith, investment specialist at Generate Investment Management.

“They’re not going go belly up, but you would have to think the possibility of a capital raise rises exponentially the longer things go on,” he said, referring to the Middle East conflict.

Brent crude oil futures rose 0.4% to US$106.01 at 5pm in Auckland as the US-Iran conflict took a back seat to President Trump’s trip to China, where he’s meeting his Chinese counterpart. Asian markets were muted, with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index down 0.2% in late trading, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.5% and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1.2%.

Among Australia’s decliners, Xero tumbled 8.1% to US$74.45 in late trading as investors looked past the growing revenue and underlying earnings to focus on a 27% decline in annual net profit and skinnier gross margins as the company’s latest effort to crack the US knocked the bottom line.

Property wobbles

Locally, the latest REINZ figures showed the Middle East war had a cooling effect on the domestic housing market, with weaker sales volumes and prices and an increase in available inventory.

Michael Gordon, a senior economist at Westpac NZ, said the US-Iran conflict stalled the property market’s early momentum at the start of the year, with the bank’s economics team forecasting a 1% decline in prices through 2026.

“Sharply weaker consumer confidence, weaker employment prospects, and the potential for OCR hikes to come sooner and faster, imply a much weaker outlook for the housing market,” Gordon said in a note, referring to the official cash rate.

Retirement village operators – typically linked to the property market – were weaker, as Ryman declined 2.7% to $2.14 and Summerset slid 2.1% to $7.40. Oceania Healthcare dropped 3.6% to 67 cents, while Radius Residential Care bucked the trend, rising 1.3% to 40.5 cents.

Fletcher Building, which separately sold its Fijian construction interests, fell 1.4% to $2.89, and developer Winton Land dropped 7% to $1.60. Lender Heartland, which has a substantial reverse mortgage business, dropped 4.5% to $1.07.

Vista Group International declined 2.4% to $2.07 after signing 88 Cineworld sites in the UK to its cloud product, while Mercury NZ decreased 1% to $7.03 after saying it would invest up to $1 billion in expanding its geothermal platform to potentially add 1 terawatt of new generation. The power company said it would fund the expansion from its balance sheet.

Exporters were broadly weaker as the kiwi dollar was largely unchanged at 59.32 US cents at 5pm from 59.40 cents yesterday.

The a2 Milk Co fell 3.7% to $7.48, while global logistics firm Mainfreight declined 2.3% to $56.20, Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund units slipped 1.5% to $6.835 and Scales Corp decreased 1% to $6.01. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was unchanged at $34.15.

Vulcan Steel posted the biggest gain on the day, up 4.7% at $6.90 on relatively light trading, while Napier Port Holdings advanced 2.5% to $3.68 and Meridian Energy rose 1.6% to $5.91.

The dual-listed lenders recovered some of yesterday’s losses, with Westpac Banking Corp up 1.5% at $43.23 and ANZ Group Holdings advancing 1.4% to $42.20.

Sanford was unchanged at $8.15 after reporting a 20% lift in first-half adjusted earnings before interest and tax to a record $65 million. The board declared an interim dividend of 5 cents per share, against expectations by Forsyth Barr analysts for no cash return in the period.

Outside the benchmark index, Synlait Milk snapped a four-day gain, falling 2% to 48 cents after it announced chief executive Richard Wyeth’s resignation, handing over the reins to acting CEO Leon Fung with immediate effect. Wyeth’s departure comes three days after Paul McGilvary resigned from the board, effective from next Monday.

Paul is a staff writer for Good Returns based in Wellington.

Tags: Market Close