MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares rise, led by NZ Refining, Summerset, Trustpower

Wednesday 16th November 2016

New Zealand shares rallied, led by New Zealand Refining Co, Summerset Group Holdings and Trustpower, while Auckland Airport dropped.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 54.14 points, or 0.8 percent, to 6,824.57. Within the index, 38 stocks gained, eight fell and five were unchanged. Turnover was $172.8 million.

"It looks like the reflation story has gone away for the day, Asian markets are strong right across the board," said Peter McIntyre, investment adviser at Craigs Investment Partners. "We've seen bond yields in the US pull back a bit, and some of that reflation story we've been seeing prior to Trump getting in has unwound."

At 17:15 local time, Japan's Nikkei 225 had gained 1.1 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.6 percent, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 had gained 0.2 percent.

New Zealand Refining Co led the index, up 4.8 percent to $2.60.

"It's had a recovery of late, probably as a value play - I know a number of brokers have price targets significantly higher to where it's trading at the moment," McIntyre said.

Summerset Group Holdings gained 4.3 percent to $4.88, which McIntyre said was down to investors seeing good value in the stock below $5 after a volatile six weeks. Trustpower gained 3.8 percent to $4.67 and Freightways rose 3.1 percent to $6.70.

Genesis Energy advanced 3.2 percent to $1.95, while outside the benchmark index New Zealand Oil and Gas jumped 23 percent to 61.5 cents. Genesis will buy NZOG's stake in the Kupe gas and oil field for $168 million, which the country's biggest electricity retailer expects will immediately boost annual earnings. If the deal goes ahead, $100 million will be returned to NZOG investors in 2017.

"New Zealand Oil and Gas are saying they see that as an asset that's representing pretty full value, so they're happy to move, and Genesis are quite happy to add to their existing stake," McIntyre said.

Tower rose 0.7 percent to 77 cents, having dropped 10 percent this week following Monday morning's earthquake. Yesterday it told the market the quake could trim its profit by a maximum $7.2 million due to its reinsurance program.

"In a market that's closing up near 1 percent, Tower's picked up on that on lightish volume," McIntyre said. "They did give the market some firm guidance quickly thanks to the reinsurance market. Whether that stock's been oversold or not I think is debatable - the jury's still out with regards to its future earnings and whether they can get themselves back on track. There are still doubts with the way it's been sold off recently. it's rebounding off its lows as some investors see some value."

Auckland International Airport was the worst performer, down 1.5 percent to $6.01, while Spark New Zealand dropped 0.8 percent to $3.325.

Investore Property was unchanged at $1.40. The property investor, which was carved out of manager Stride Property earlier this year, posted its maiden first-half results of $2.3 million in net profit and signalled annual dividends are still on track to meet expectations of 5.13 cents.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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