Speculation is mounting across the Tasman that Spark New Zealand is being circled by private equity players hunting a bargain, with The Australian newspaper reporting KKR has been running the sums on the country’s biggest telecommunications provider.
Meanwhile, stocks on Wall Street extended gains with chipmakers such as Nvidia still buoyed by the ongoing talks between US and Chinese officials to thaw their cooling relations and find common ground on the thorny issue of rare earth materials and export controls.
Huawei Technologies chief executive Ren Zhengfei gave the lay of the land as the telecommunications giant chases its US rivals in a front-page interview with the People’s Daily newspaper, the official paper of the Chinese Communist Party.
And New Zealand’s annual Fieldays event kicks off today, with the primary sector one of the highlights for the domestic economy.
Still talking
Stocks on Wall Street were buoyed by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gaining 0.6% as chipmakers and semiconductor firms including Nvidia, Navitas Semiconductor and Intel Corp were among the bigger gainers on optimism about the trade talks between US and Chinese officials.
The second day of talks is continuing, with US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick saying they were going well and spanning a wide range of issues. US export controls on selling goods to Chinese buyers and Chinese restrictions on materials needed for tech components are high on the agenda.
Meanwhile, Huawei chief Ren Zhengfei told the People’s Daily that China’s single chips are one generation behind their US counterparts, and urged broader support for deeper research and development.
“US and China trade talks entered their second day and were ongoing into the London evening as we go to print,” Bank of New Zealand senior market strategist Jason Wong said in a note. “A Treasury official said the session could stretch into the night as the parties work out technical details, resuming talks at 7am NZ time after a break for dinner.”
Meta Platforms advanced after reports it has agreed to buy a 49% stake of artificial intelligence startup Scale AI, which provides swathes of data used to train large language models.
Getting slower
World Bank forecasts warned growth might slow in the US due to its new trade policy of imposing tariffs on trading partners, and projected a sharp slowing of economic expansion in the coming year.
US inflation figures on Wednesday are the next piece of major economic data on investors' minds, with economists predicting a small acceleration in the pace of rising consumer prices.
The kiwi dollar traded at 60.42 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 60.51 cents yesterday.
Across the Atlantic stock markets were mixed with the UK’s FTSE 100 index up 0.2% and Germany’s DAX 30 down 0.8%
Investors have become more attracted to Europe, with Blackstone the latest to indicate its growing commitment to the continent as chief executive Steve Schwarzman told Bloomberg Television his firm plans to invest up to US$500 billion in the region.
And Danish heavyweight Novo Nordisk gained about 6% after the Financial Times reported an activist hedge fund is building a stake in Ozempic weight-loss drugmaker.
Homeward bound
The upbeat sentiment on Wall Street is expected to flow into the antipodes, with Australian futures pointing to a 0.3% gain for the S&P/ASX 200 index, which hit a new record yesterday.
Locally, Spark is back in focus as The Australian newspaper’s DataRoom column reported New York private equity firm KKR is weighing up a deal to buy the telecommunications firm, which is seeking to regain investor’s confidence after a string of earnings disappointments. Spark has been seeking partners for its capital-hungry data centre business, with Jarden running the process to sell a 50% stake in the unit.
And New Zealand’s annual Fieldays agricultural event kicks off in Mystery Creek near Hamilton today, with the country’s primary sector one of the highlights of the domestic economy and firms such as apple exporter Scales Corp yesterday raising its earnings guidance.
Local data today include travel and migration figures for April, while New Zealand King Salmon is holding its annual meeting in Nelson.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Dena Skulskaya on Unsplash.
