Rocket Lab overtakes Air New Zealand as Sharesies investors regain confidence

Retail investor confidence has rebounded, with Rocket Lab overtaking Air New Zealand as the most widely held company on the Sharesies platform.

The latest Sharesies Index, covering the April to June quarter, showed investor sentiment rising from 43 at the start of the quarter to 57 by the end, moving from the balanced range into confident territory.

The index peaked at 61 in mid-June, with Sharesies saying the rise may have been influenced by efforts to end US-Iran hostilities, before easing slightly by quarter end.

Sharesies said Rocket Lab has become the widely-held company on the Sharesies platform, displacing Air New Zealand, which had held the top company spot since the index began reporting in 2023.

Rocket Lab shares were held by close to 70,000 Sharesies investors across New Zealand and Australia at the end of June, as well as by more than 4300 members of the Sharesies KiwiSaver Scheme.

Sharesies head of data and analytics Jordan Cunningham said Rocket Lab had "that Kiwi kind of connection" and seeing it succeed in the United States was "a story a lot of New Zealand investors can kind of get behind".

Investor interest in the space sector also extended to SpaceX, which entered the Sharesies Bundle for the first time after its Nasdaq listing under the ticker SPCX.

SpaceX was the 11th most widely held company on the platform, with nearly 23,000 Sharesies investors holding its shares across New Zealand and Australia by quarter end.

However, diversified investments remained dominant overall, with the Smart US 500 ETF retaining its place as the most widely held investment on Sharesies.

"This suggests investors are not going all out on individual shares, and are making sure they spread their risk, which is great to see," Cunningham said.

Sharesies said cashflows into the platform also strengthened during the quarter, with more than $440 million coming into customer wallets in June alone.

The deposit ratio averaged 2.08, up from 1.94 in the previous quarter, and peaked in early June at 3.22, meaning $3.22 was deposited for every $1 withdrawn.

Net buying also strengthened through the quarter, with the buyers-to-sellers ratio reaching a 19-month high of 1.46 in mid-June.

The proportion invested in individual companies averaged 71 percent, up from 68 percent in the previous quarter.

Cunningham said there were "positive indications" investors were becoming more mature and continuing to look for growth rather than withdrawing from the market entirely.