Sharemarket trade numbers picking up

While fallout from the global financial crisis continues to batter stock exchange operator NZX, some improvement was seen in February from earlier in the summer.

NZX said today that total trades last month were 12 per cent down on a year earlier at 38,426, but were up on both December and January.

The total value traded last month was 36 per cent down from a year earlier at $1.79 billion, and the average daily value traded was 32 per cent down at $94 million.

Total capital raised last month was $129.4m, with $6.7m in equity and $122.7m in debt.

NZX said South Canterbury Finance raised $100m in debt in February, taking to $470m the amount it had raised on the NZDX market since January 2007.

The number of NZX market data terminals had declined 14 per cent to 9351 in February.

Smartshares funds under management were down 20 per cent at $538m.

- NZPA