NZ sharemarket reaches 14 week high

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose strongly at lunchtime and had a late dip before closing at 11,552.88, up 77.11 points or 0.67% – matching the 11,554.48 set on Aug 31.

The index’s intraday high was 11,593.22 points.  There were 79 gainers and 58 decliners over the whole market on increased volumes of 92.23 million shares, totalling $207.47m. 

Channel Infrastructure, down 5c or 3.33% to $1.45, topped the turnover list with 54.48m shares worth $73.63m after Mobil Oil NZ offloaded 53.76m shares and reduced its shareholding to 14.19% from 17.2%. 

The market shrugged off further evidence of the slowing economy when gross domestic product (GDP) fell 0.3% in the September quarter – economists expected slight growth of 0.2%. Per capita GDP was down 0.9%, and technically, the country is in a recession.