April a cruel month for NZX trading as volumes, values decline

Tuesday 4th May 2010

Trading growth on NZX’s markets stalled in April, with a decline in the value and volume of trades from a month earlier.

Total trades dropped 11% to 45,284 in April from a month earlier, and were up 2% from the same month a year earlier. The total value traded fell 4.3% to $1.8 billion from March, and was down 11% from April 2009, which was “comparable with lower liquidity levels globally,” the bourse operator said in a statement.

The number of trades fell 11% to 40,928 from a month earlier, and was flat compared to April 2009, while the value traded sank 4.4% to $1.67 billion from March, and was down 13% from April 2009.

Liquidity on the NZX has been under scrutiny, with investors still waiting for the year to start picking up, and fund manager Paul Glass, who bought Goldman Sachs JBWere’s asset management fund, last month told investors that his new Devon Funds Management would favour Australian stocks over New Zealand.

The debt market, which underpinned most of March’s growth, reported a 6.8% fall in the number of trades to 4,214 in April, though it was up 20% from the same month a year earlier. The value of debt traded declined 5% to $134 million month-on-month, and was up 11% from April 2009.

Trading on the small-cap NZAX shrank 12% to 142 trades in April, with the value shrinking 13% to $920,000. Year-on-year, the volume of trades fell 11%, though the value climbed 73%.

Some $60.5 million of new equity and $100 million of new debt was raised in April. The market capitalisation edged up to $5.29 billion, from $54.95 billion in March, and gained 17% from April 2009. The NZX 50 index edged up 0.6% to 3,286 in April, and is up 4% this year.

Shares in the bourse operator climbed 1.7% to $1.83 in trading this morning.

Businesswire.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet