Major DDoS attack causes NZX outage, trading halt

Tuesday, 25 August 2020

The NZX experienced a DDoS attack from overseas just before 4pm on Tuesday.

Another positive day on the NZX was brought to an abrupt halt just before 4pm on Tuesday due to a major outage caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack from overseas.

A joint statement from the New Zealand Exchange and network provider Spark said that as a result of the attack the stock exchange operator had decided to halt trading in its cash markets at about 3.57pm.

“A DDoS attack aims to disrupt service by saturating a network with significant volumes of internet traffic. The attack was able to be mitigated and connectivity has now been restored for NZX,” the statement said.

Despite the trading halt, the NZX 50 index closed up 0.6 per cent, or 72 points, bringing the index to 1193.

* Media company NZME cuts workforce by 15%

* NZME interim profit falls 73pc to $950,000

Craigs Investment Partners head of private wealth research Mark Lister said it was an inconvenience but any orders made after the attack would be placed in the morning.

The NZX 50's closing value was about 114 points away from the all-time high seen on February 21, Hamilton Hindin Greene investment adviser Jeremy Sullivan said. With another couple of positive days on the sharemarket it could be surpassed, he said.

Meridian Energy's share price gained 5.8 per cent, an indication that the stock was being purchased ahead of its results announcement on Wednesday, Sullivan said.

Lister said the share-price gain by New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) of nearly 45 per cent was “massive”, probably because of the company’s half-year results announcement.

The company reported operating revenue of $157.8 million for the half-year. This was down 13 per cent on the same period last year, largely because of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs said in a statement to the NZX that digital subscriptions had continued to grow and now totalled 82,000 including 43,000 paid subscribers. Chairwoman Barbara Chapman said the company went into the Covid-19 pandemic in a strong position and effective capital management had enabled it to rebound quickly.

Lister said: “The market was obviously very happy with that result. But the share price move was off a fairly low base.”

Napier Port Holdings released a quarterly statement for the nine moths ended on June 30, and said it expected its net profit after tax for the full financial year to be about $20m, as long as there were no material changes to trading conditions.

Lister said: “The share price still rose slightly. It was up 1.7 per cent.”

Third-quarter revenue for the port company was down 16.2 per cent on the same period last year to $24.3m, reflecting the drop in container volumes coming through the port. These were down 17.4 per cent due to the impact of the Covid-19 alert level 4 restrictions on non-essential cargo and to lower empty-container imports, the statement said.

Bulk cargo volume was also down 24.2 per cent due to the cessation of log harvesting at alert level 4. The port was unlikely to see ship visits in the upcoming cruise season.

United States sharemarkets hit new highs at the end of last week and had pushed higher again overnight, Lister said.

“Our market only needs to go up about 0.7 per cent to retake that all-time high from February before the pandemic took hold. Being down 30-odd per cent at one point, the NZX 50 has rocketed back nearly 40 per cent,” he said.