Posted on August 25, 2020 at 4:24 PM
Offshore DDoS Attack On NZX Causes Trading To Halt With Power Outage
The New Zealand Exchange (NZX) had its system come to an abrupt halt on Tuesday before 4 pm. This was due to a major power outage that was, in turn, caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack coming from outside the country.
DDoS Attack Successfully Mitigated
As a result, Spark, the network provider, and NZX made a joint statement about the matter. The explained that this power outage was due to the exchange operator opting to halt trading altogether as a response to the attack, particularly its cash markets. The operator did so at about 3:57 pm.
The statement detailed the fundamentals of a DDoS attack. That is, the attack itself aims at overwhelming a specific network by virtue of sheer volume of internet traffic. The statement also made it clear, however, that the attack was successfully mitigated, with connectivity for NZX having already been restored.
Some Positive Numbers
Even with the halt in trading, the NZX 50 index managed to close 0.6% up, or 72 points. This will bring the index to an impressive 1193
Mark Lister stands as the Head of Private Wealth Research at Craigs Investment Partners, and gave comment about the matter. He stated that the market shut down was an inconvenience, sure, but any orders that were made after the attack would simply be placed in the morning, instead.
Lister also highlighted the massive share-price gain that was experienced by New Zealand Media Entertainment (NZME). The company saw an uptick of almost 45%, which is incredible.
This is quite possibly due to the half-year results announcement the company had made, stated Lister. Lister explained that the market, in and of itself, is very happy with that result, it seems, even if the share price move was off a relatively low base.
NZME Gaining Massive Success
NZME had recorded operating revenues of $157.8 million for the half-year. While that stands as 13% lower than that of the same period, year-over-year, it’s seen as an impressive success due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Micheal Boggs stands as the CEO of NZME, and gave comment about its growth in a recent statement. He highlighted how its digital subscriptions had seen continued growth, totaling in 82,000. A little more than half of that, 43,000, are paid subscribers, according to Boggs.
NZX Seeing Great Growth
Jeremy Sullivan stands as an Investment Advisor at Hamilton Hindin Greene, and weighed in on the matter, as well. As it stands now, Sullivan highlighted that the closing value for the NZX 40 stood just 114 points away from the all-time high.
This ATH was recorded on the 21st of February, 2020. However, Sullivan is convinced that this ATH could be surpassed yet again with a few more positive days within the share market.
Sullivan also highlighted how Meridian Energy had its share price go up by 5.8%. This,7 Sullivan says, is a clear indicator that stock is already being purchased ahead of its results announcement, which will be made on Wednesday.
Ports Gaining As Well
Alongside this, Napier Port Holdings had released a quarterly statement, addressing the nine months that ended on the 30th of June. The company stated that it already suspects a net profit after tax for the complete financial year to be approximately $20 million in total. This, of course, is assuming that there are no material changes within the trading conditions at large.
The port company’s revenue for the third quarter had gone down by a considerable 16.2% if you compare it to last year’s revenue of $24.3 million. This, in turn, reflects the overall drop in volumes of containers that has gone through the port.
Their traffic has dropped by 17.4% thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the alert level 4 restrictions regarding non-essential cargo and the lowering of empty-container imports. This comes by way of the statement the company had made regarding the matter at large.
