Wesfarmers hits record share price

Shares in Wesfarmers have reached a record high of $55.43 per share before closing at $55.25, up 1.7 per cent for the day.

The company operates more than 700 supermarkets and is the owner of Kmart, Target, Bunnings and Officeworks.

The bump in share price is understood to have been influenced by an increase in analysts' post-COVID confidence in Bunnings, which represents about 70 per cent of the business.

In addition to retail, Wesfarmers has interests in coal mining and production; gas processing and distribution; insurance; industrial and safety product distribution; chemicals and fertilisers manufacture; and investment businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and internationally.

The stunning result is matched by the growth in Business News's own index, the BN30, which passed 200 for the first time on Monday and closed on Wednesday at 196.8.

The BN30 started on January 4, 2016, meaning an equal investment across all 30 companies on that date would have doubled in value in little more than five years.

When talk of the pandemic hit markets in February, the BN30 fell from about 174 back to less than 102 in the space of a month.