Jeremy Hutton: Milford Asset Management Equities Analyst on the NZX winners and losers for 2024

2024 is nearly over - so which companies did the best on the New Zealand stock exchange for the year?

Tower Insurance leads the pack, off the back of a series of upgraded earnings and regained inclusion back in the NZX50 Index.

Milford Asset Management's Jeremy Hutton unpacked the winners and the losers for the year.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're looking back at the year that was on the
stock market, the Index fifty with the winners and losers
joining us Jeremy Hutton from Milford Asset Management, Jeremy good evening,
Good evening, Ryan, who is currently leading the indedex fifty
so far this year. Who are we crowning Number one?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, so far. The current leader on the insiet X
fifty with about two trading weeks to go in twenty
twenty four is Tower Insurance. Now. Tower is up a
whopping one hundred and fifteen percent this year, albeit it
is coming off a bit of a low base with
a horrid twenty twenty three with some some of the
bad weather events which really hit all the insurers hard.
But Tower has regained a lot of momentum, you know,

(00:38):
some more benign conditions in twenty twenty four and has
had some good operational improvements as well. So that has
led to a series of earnings upgrades throughout the year
and it's regained inclusion back in the very important incide
X fifty index. So that's been driving the really strong
share price performance from Tower and gin.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Track was the tech business we crowned last year. In
twenty twenty three. How did they perform this year?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, another very strong year for gen Track. It's up
one hundred and one percent in twenty twenty four, and
this follows a very strong and impressive one hundred and
sixty percent in twenty twenty three as well. So Genrack
provides software to electricity retailers and it's had some really
good tailwinds of these retailers wanting to shift from older,

(01:22):
clunkier systems onto gent tracks, more fit for purpose software.
It's been winning customers all around the world, many geographies,
growing revenue strongly and also in a big earnings upgrade cycle.
And with the electrification of everything in our economy, it
needs more smarts and more software to help deliver this.
So those tailwinds could continue. And it is great to

(01:45):
see a New Zealand tech business growing and doing really
well on the global stage.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
It really is. It's a great story. Jeremy, Let's talk
about the losers, the not great stories which companies have
struggled this year.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, as we know, the domestic economy has been really
challenged with higher regious rates and consumer pockets getting squeezed,
and this has been reflected in the share prices of
companies that are exposed to sectors in this So with
that backdrop, we've had retail that's been hit really hard,
so Catmandu that's down forty eight percent this year, the
web House down thirty seven percent as well, and their

(02:19):
construction has been really tough, so that's affected Fletcher Building
that's down thirty eight percent, and then residential housing also
been pretty slow. Royman Healthcare has some exposure to that,
so that's down twenty seven percent. But then even Spark,
which is traditionally a very defensive business that's been hit
very hard with businesses and governments reducing their IT and
mobile spend, and that stock that is down forty six

(02:41):
percent so far this year.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Overall, the house the Injects fifty performed this year as
a whole is a collective, Yeah, I'd.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Say it's been a pass for the nxet X fifty.
It's up eight percent so far this year, and given
some of the constraints and the pressure on the local economy,
it's actually not too bad of a result. Unfortunately, it
is behind the very powerful US indexes, some of which
are up over twenty five percent, mainly on that magnificent
seven and AI boom. But I think the setup for

(03:10):
New Zealand is improving into twenty twenty five. You know,
we've had some decent interest rate cuts delivered already and
likely some more to come, so we should start to
see some of these beaten up cyclical sectors turn much
more positive in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's hope, so Jeremy, we need it very much. Jeremy
Hutton from Milford Asset Management. For more from Heather Duplessy
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