LAWRENCE SMITH/Things
Of the 185 stocks that traded Friday, 112 were up and 33 were down.
The New Zealand stock market ended the last week of July with a 1.4% increase to a three-month high.
The benchmark S&P/NZX50 index closed 164 points higher at 11,492 after a 1.7% jump on Thursday.
“I think local markets are at the pace of a strong recovery after the rally in US markets fueled by the Fed’s less aggressive rhetoric,” said CMC Markets analyst Tina Teng.
The US central bank raised its benchmark rate by three-quarters of a point on Wednesday (US time), and the market welcomed comments from Fed chairman Jerome Powell that interest rate hikes had already had some effect.
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Optimism about less aggressive rate hikes was bolstered by a 0.9% decline in US gross domestic product for the June quarter, following a 1.6% decline.
Better-than-expected earnings from Apple and Amazon in the United States helped boost broad sentiment, especially in tech stocks, Teng said.
“Due to the spillover effect, Pushpay rose sharply for the second trading day in a row. Logistics and energy stocks were also strong with a positive outlook for earnings to be announced next month.
“The momentum can continue into August.”
Breakfast
ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner says if there was a flow-through effect, it could be felt through export prices related to China.
US-based New Zealand-based church donation technology company Pushpay rose 1.5% to $1.29.
main cargo, which rose 6.3% on Thursday after a trading update, it rose another 1.9% to $77.
Of the top stocks, Meridian Energy rose 1.4% to $4.97, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fell 0.4% to $21.20 and Auckland Airport rose 1.7% to $7.46.
Greg Smith, chief of retail at Devon Funds, said the second half of the year had started off more positively than the first six months of the year.
“There was a lot of bad news priced in in the first six months of the year,” he said.
Some of the heat had been removed from the drivers of higher global interest rates.
“The economies are starting to cool down, you have oil below $100 a barrel, parts of the economy are starting to slow down, housing markets are slowing down, including New Zealand, so I think it reflects a lot of bad news that we’ve priced in” , he said.
The market gained 6.8% in July, but was still a long way from its level above 13,000 at the start of the year. The top 50 had fallen about 17% in the first half of the year and were up 1% since early June.
Of the 185 stocks that traded Friday, 112 were up and 33 were down.
In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 Index closed 0.8% higher at 6942, while Asian stocks were largely higher.
Earlier on Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 1.2% to 4072.43, while the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1% to close at 32,529.63. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.1% to 12,162.59.
– With AP