By ELLEN READ
The New Zealand Stock Exchange outperformed the world's major equity indices last year, ranking ninth out of 53 bourses monitored by the World Federation of Exchanges.
The NZSE All Gross Index, which covers all locally listed stocks, rose 16.71 per cent to finish the year at 1886.46.
This was
a better performance than the Nikkei 225, Dow Jones Industrials, the Nasdaq, the FTSE 100 and Australia's All Ords.
Top of the list was Turkey's Istanbul exchange, up 46 per cent, followed by Sri Lanka's Colombo exchange, up 38.75 per cent, and the Korean exchange, up 37.47 per cent.
The Turkish exchange rose rapidly in the latter part of last year after the country received billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund to help the Government end an economic crisis.
The NZSE All Gross Index is an accumulative index that calculates changes in investors' returns based on price movements, dividends and other distributions.
Accumulation indices were considered the best measure of overall market performance in a high-yield market such as New Zealand, said the exchange's managing director, Bill Foster.
Recorded funds raised through the exchange rose 9 per cent to $4.04 billion last year.
The news accompanied the release of the NZSE 2001 Fact Book - which showed 14 New Zealand and one overseas company listed on the exchange last year.