Wall St sets perky lead for antipodes in Christmas countdown
Rocket Lab shoots off to new high on defence deal.
Tech stocks were back in vogue on Friday as Wall Street’s megacaps including Nvidia and Alphabet were buoyed by Micron Technology’s upbeat forecast for artificial intelligence-driven demand for its products, while Oracle rallied on news of TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance agreeing to hand over the US operations to a group of investors including the software giant.
Sharesies favourite Rocket Lab shot off to new highs after the Kiwi-born space company signed an US$816 million contract with the US Space Development Agency to deliver satellites for an advanced missile warning system.
Cruise operators rallied after Carnival Corp reported strong quarterly earnings and laid out a rosier outlook for 2026 than investors were predicting, while Nike tumbled despite beating analysts’ expectations.
The Friday rally on Wall Street has futures pointing to a strong start to the day for the ASX, while the shortened trading weeks are set to keep trading volumes thin on the NZX.
Red December
New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 index is heading for a soft December, down 1.2% so far this month with the two shortened trading weeks to go with office workers having largely decamped for the local summer holiday.
Cinema analytics firm Vista Group International will be in view after Walt Disney Co’s latest Avatar movie was the highest grossing film at the box office on its opening weekend, with US$88 million of tickets sold in North America, falling short of projections.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index is up almost 0.1% so far this month, while futures markets are pointing to a 0.5% gain when trading opens across the Tasman today, following the strong lead from Wall Street on Friday.
The Nasdaq Composite drove gains on Friday, up 1.3%, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.8%.
Tech stocks regained some of their lost lustre last week, with Nvidia gaining 3.9% and Google-parent Alphabet up 1.6%, as investors embraced the strong outlook for AI-driven demand for Micron Technology’s memory chips.
To the moon
Rocket Lab surged 18% to US$70.52 after the favourite among Sharesies users signed its biggest ever deal with the US Space Development Agency, with extra opportunities to capture as much as US$1 billion from the missile defence system contract.
Tesla dipped 0.5% on Friday, after the Delaware Supreme Court overturned a judgment striking out chief executive Elon Musk’s pay packet earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Oracle climbed 6.6% as China’s ByteDance agreed to form a joint venture with US investors including Oracle to avoid the social media platform being banned in the world’s biggest economy.
Cruise operators were broadly stronger after Carnival Corp beat earnings expectations and reinstated its dividend while proffering an upbeat outlook for the coming year.
Meanwhile, Nike sank 11% after the sporting goods firm as a soft outlook in China overshadowed better-than-expected quarterly earnings, and French-fry maker Lamb Weston shed more than quarter as it warned of rising cost pressures.
Stock markets across the Atlantic also ended the week stronger, with the UK’s FTSE 100 up 0.6% in late trading, while Germany’s DAX 30 gained 0.4% and France’s CAC 40 was marginally higher.
The kiwi dollar was little changed at 57.57 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 57.65 cents last week, while the local currency jumped to 90.83 yen from 89.83 yen after the Bank of Japan hiked its benchmark interest rate to a 30-year high 0.75%.
No local data are scheduled for today.
