Weekly "Focus" and Kiwis

Stories are starting to emerge of Americans looking to flee their country for more welcoming locales. The University of Toronto recently added three professors from Yale and countries are starting to highlight ways for Americans to become permanent residents. New Zealand is one such country that has updated its “residency by investment program”. Applicants are required to invest between New Zealand $5 and $10 million (equivalent to C$4.1 to $8.2 million) and must spend a certain amount of time in the country known for its beautiful scenery and abundance of sheep. To track the performance of the Auckland stock market, the iShares MSCI New Zealand ETF (ENZL) is an easy way – so far in 2025 the ETF is lower by approx. 3.5%, outperforming the MSCI World Index, which is lower by more than 5% (i). The three largest companies by market value are in the Financial, Health Care and Industrial sectors. Whereas Canadians are referred to as “Canucks”, New Zealanders are referred to as “Kiwis”, the term being derived from name of their native flightless bird.

 

	Sector	Price Return 2025	Dividend Yield
1 -Fisher and Paykel Healthcare (FPH)	Healthcare	-12.8%	1.2%
2- Auckland International Airport (AIA)	Industrial	-7.4%	1.6%
3- Infratil (IFT)	Financial	-15.6%	2.1%

Source: FactSet, Values as of April 17, 2025

 

This week’s "Focus" from our economics team is attached.

 

Have a great long weekend,

 

Brad

Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Investment Advisor