Wellington, Oct 5 NZPA - Interest in the New Zealand sharemarket recovered last month following a global market slump, with the NZX reporting an increase in capital raised and trading activity compared with a month earlier.

However, market activity was down on a year ago, including a 13 percent decline in total trades and an 8 percent fall in daily average traded to $98 million.

Total trades on the main board were down 13 percent at 45,218 in September, and the value traded was down 6 percent at $2.1 billion.

Total market capitalisation fell 1 percent to $53.2b.

A total of $2.1b in capital has been raised so far this calendar year, with $341.7m raised during the month.

That was a 200 percent increase on capital raised during August, including a $147m retail bond from Greenstone Energy.

The total value traded on NZX markets rose by 23 percent to $2.2b compared with August. There were seven days during the month with a daily average trade over $100m, compared with one day in August, NZX said.

The Clearing Corporation began operating on September 6, and its gross value of cleared trades was $1.9b.

The NZX has a total of 220 listed issuers, 149 of them on the main board.

Shares in NZX were down a cent at $1.57 in early afternoon trading.