(10 January 2012 – New Zealand) NZX chief executive Mark Weldon signalled the company’s trading metrics for 2011 will show record volumes.The report will be released next week, but it has already shown trading volumes on the NZX are at the highest level since the exchange operator began keeping records in 1986.
‘Looking at number of trades and value traded … it looks like [2011 was] the best year we’ve had since we’ve been tracking numbers through ’86,’ Weldon said.
Volumes steadily increased in 2011 and ended the year strongly.
In December, typically one of the quietest months of the year for the exchange, trading increased by 43.2 percent, to 63,072 trades, figures released yesterday show. The monthly trades were worth NZ$2.3 billion (A$1.7 billion).
The number of trades valued at more than NZ$50,000 increased by 44 percent in that month. ‘When I arrived here in 2002 it seemed to me that December was for Christmas parties. I got the sense last year that December was for working,’ Weldon said.
‘Maybe it was the fact that the Rugby World Cup had left people behind on some of their revenue numbers, but December was pretty full on, on all fronts in all parts of the business.’
The first trading days in January, typically the quietest week of the year for the NZX, had topped 3000 trades a day, much like in December, he said.