Source: Radio New Zealand
Bad news is nothing new for Kiwi investors in the NZX but better days could be on the way. RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The NZX is a small exchange, and it’s had a difficult stretch, but despite global events there may be hope on the horizon.
Once again global events have filtered down to New Zealand and hit our stock market – and our KiwiSaver balances.
But Kiwi investors in the NZX are used to bad news.
“Got to be honest, it’s had a tough five years,” said RNZ business reporter Jeffrey Halley.
“Its total return for the last five years is just under 1.7 percent. And in 2025 it actually made 3.3 percent, but it’s down about 2.6 percent in the year to date, the three months that we’ve seen in 2026, so it’s really been pretty flat.
“Now for context, over the last five years, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have returned around 85, 90 percent.
“It’s absolutely awful and there’s no sugarcoating that.”
Halley said we can blame the pandemic and the recession that followed, as well as the fact that we don’t have tech companies or many high-end manufacturing companies listed.
“Our NZX is really made up of sort of what you might describe as legacy industries – there’s utilities and telcos and some manufacturers, some shops and some airlines. It’s not technology and that’s what you can really point your finger at.”
But there may be hope on the horizon.
Anna De Souza is head of origination at the NZX and her job involves helping companies list. She can’t say how many companies are likely to list this year, because “the deal is never done until the company comes to market” but things are looking positive.
“I would say that at this stage the pipeline is probably the strongest it’s been in a really long time. We have several companies which are currently heavily underway in looking at that IPO [initial public offering] market.
“We’ve got strong interest from overseas entities looking to take a secondary listing on NZX as well as other small to mid-cap companies who are in the process and having strong conversations with NZX about taking that step.
“The last six months has actually been quite a great period for NZX. Over the last six months we’ve had five new companies list on the NZX and two have been this year.
“Both of those companies has a really strong start to trading.”
Those two are Tāiko Critical Minerals, which came to market earlier this month, and Rua Gold.
In today’s episode of The Detail, we look back at the NZX’s performance over the last several years, what needs to change, whether there’s a future for a local exchange.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
