Latest / Best of Business / Jeremy Hutton: Milford Asset Management expert on the state of the markets at the mid-point of 2026

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Jeremy Hutton: Milford Asset Management expert on the state of the markets at the mid-point of 2026 · Best of Business

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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Now we're halfway through twenty twenty six, so it's probably
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  Speaker 2: a good point to check in on returns from financial markets.
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  Speaker 2: Jeremy Howson, Milford Asset Management.
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  Speaker 1: Is with us A.
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  Speaker 2: Jeremy, Hey, Heather, how you doing very well? Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: So it's been another good year so far for the
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  Speaker 2: US markets, is it?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, certainly, not a lot of noise and
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  Speaker 3: action out there, but when it's all said and done,
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  Speaker 3: at a headline level, the S and P five hundred,
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  Speaker 3: which is the largest five hundred companies in the US,
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  Speaker 3: has returned almost ten percent for the first half of
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. So I'd consider this pretty good given
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  Speaker 3: some of the geopolitical issues we've had and the energy crisis.
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  Speaker 3: But I mean, all that is almost ancient, ancient history.
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  Speaker 3: But now, of course we've discussed this a lot. Just
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  Speaker 3: the rally in the S and P five hundred has
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  Speaker 3: been incredibly narrow and focused on a small range of companies,
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  Speaker 3: and this mainly semiconductor chips and even old fashioned computer hardware,
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  Speaker 3: and this is linked to the AI boom. So some
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  Speaker 3: analysis has said between eighty five and ninety percent of
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  Speaker 3: the games this year have been focused on that one sector.
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  Speaker 3: So a lot of concentration happening in markets at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: So what about the other global markets, how they perform?
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  Speaker 2: How they performed the NASDAK in the Europe, Australian, New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand and so on.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the tech heavy NASDAQ in the US also has
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  Speaker 3: had had a strong year on that same AI theme
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  Speaker 3: and a few good chip companies in there too. So
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  Speaker 3: that's up twenty percent year to date, and Europe's been
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  Speaker 3: pretty solid up nine ukok as well at six percent,
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  Speaker 3: but unfortunately down Under Australia and New Zealand have been lagging.
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  Speaker 3: They're up only half a percent each yet a date.
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  Speaker 3: But the winning index has been Korea. That's up one
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  Speaker 3: hundred and two percent this year, and the Korean markets
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  Speaker 3: highly dominated by two very large chip companies which are
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  Speaker 3: very much in s k Heinez and Samsung, and they've exploded.
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  Speaker 3: So again a common theme round markets that you know,
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  Speaker 3: that AI theme really dominating through now.
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  Speaker 2: The inzet market, I mean that was affected pretty heavily
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  Speaker 2: by the energy issues with Iran, but it seems to
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  Speaker 2: have been bounced back in the last month or so.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So the inxet X fifty gained two
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  Speaker 3: point eight percent in June, so that took the year
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  Speaker 3: to date numbers back into positive territory. Just but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: you're right. I mean, we were seeing a few of
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  Speaker 3: those cyclical type companies rallying on the inside X aligned
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  Speaker 3: with that economic recovery we were seeing late last year
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  Speaker 3: earlier this year, and the market had been anticipating a
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  Speaker 3: bit more of that before Iran. But post Iran, you know,
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  Speaker 3: during the second quarter, it changed pretty quickly. You obviously
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  Speaker 3: had interest rates going up, inflation up. That entered the
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  Speaker 3: economic recovery. So we saw some names that are exposed
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  Speaker 3: to this, like retirement players Somerset and Ryman, and construction
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  Speaker 3: like Fletcher Building, consumer like Freightways in New Zealand Sky City.
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  Speaker 3: They all sold off aggressively. But again that's flipped back
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  Speaker 3: in June with with the Iran crisis coming to some
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  Speaker 3: sort of resolution. So if that holds, you know, I
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  Speaker 3: think the inside X or ENZ economy will I suppose
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  Speaker 3: continue that slow grind that we were seeing earlier in
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  Speaker 3: the year.
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  Speaker 2: Who's been leading the INSIDEX so far this year.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, focusing on that same theme, but Infra till that's
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  Speaker 3: been leading the injet X this year. That's been up
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  Speaker 3: thirty eight percent so far. And again that's our local
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  Speaker 3: AI theme and it's one of its portfolio companies called
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  Speaker 3: Cambra Data Centers has been winning some really big contracts
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  Speaker 3: in data center buildouts in Australia and that that's been
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  Speaker 3: really well received by the market. But a few other
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  Speaker 3: notable performers who have been consistently doing well over the
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  Speaker 3: past few years Scaler up that's up twenty six percent,
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  Speaker 3: Porta Towering are up sixteen, Fontie here at fourteen. They're
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  Speaker 3: continuing their strong run and really showing their quality through
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  Speaker 3: a brilliant stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Jeremy, thanks for runningus. WUD appreciate it, mate, Jeremy Hutton,
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  Speaker 2: Milford Act Management.
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