NZX activity picks up in August

Activity on the New Zealand sharemarket picked up last month, as the benchmark NZX-50 index rose to its highest level since early October.

Figures released by NZX today show the daily average value traded last month was $109 million, the best since last September.

While the daily average value was still 11 per cent down on August 2008, the 2521 average daily trades were up 9 per cent on a year earlier.

It was a particularly quiet month for capital raising, with just $7.9m in new equity and $10,000 in new debt.

Despite that, the $2 billion in new equity raised so far in 2009 was 280 per cent up on the same period last year, and the $3.02b in new debt was up 56 per cent, NZX said.

Real time data terminals were down for the month, with losses continuing to be mostly from one data vendor. Terminals are down 27 per cent from a year earlier, and down 23 per cent so far this year.

During August the NZX-50 reached a 10-1/2-month high above 3150 points, having climbed out of a hole that saw it near 2410 in March.

- NZPA