eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Stocks maintained a bull run adding 11 percent of value sustained by gains across board as investors hedge against inflation.
The country has for long been battling inflation and foreign currency shortages that affected business across sectors.
During the week under review the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe launched the foreign currency auction system that saw the official rate pegged at $57 against the greenback until another auction is held next week. The auction system is expected to bring transparency in foreign currency allocation as well as stabilise the exchange rate, which is now in the range of $90 against US$1 on the illegal parallel market.
During the week to Wednesday, all key indicators closed pointing northwards. The primary indicator, the ZSE All Share Index put on 11,59 percent to close settled at 1794 points, while the Medium Cap paced the fastest with a 16 percent gain to 3 208 points.
At 1 271 points, the ZSE Top 10 index was 8 percent above prior week level of 1 174 points. The ZSE Top 15 Index or on 7 percent to 1 447 points while the Small Cap advanced 10 percent to 5 393 points. The Small Cap remain the biggest gains on a year to date basis after riding by 632 percent since beginning of the year.
Total market value jumped 11 percent to $229 billion compared to $206 billion achieved in the comparable week.
Headlining risers for the week was financial services group, FBC which put on 85 percent of value to $16,01 from $8,61 becoming the market’s best weekly performer for the second consecutive week.
Hospitality group, RTG ticked 72 percent to $2,14, gains that pushed the group to the 10th most capitalised stock on the market with a total value of $5,34 billion. RTG growth comes at a times the tourism and hospitality industry is hamstrung by effects of the COVID 19 pandemic which resulted in travel restrictions to limit the spread of the pandemic, thus reducing activity for the sector.
At $3,28, resources group, Bindura was 64 percent ahead of prior week’s $2.
Afdis rose 43 percent to $18,60 while cigarette maker, BAT put on 25 percent to $216 wrapping up the week’s top five risers. Market watchers have guided BAT’s volumes to remain depressed for the current financial year due to falling demand as the market battles waning disposable incomes due to inflation. Other significant gains were recorded in ZHL which put on 24 percent of value to $2,74. The duo of Seed Co International and OK Zimbabwe each rose by 23 percent to $26 and $6,44 respectively. OK reported profit for the year to March 31 2020, surged 1000 percent to $566 million from $49 million recorded in the prior year while revenue came in at $4,5 billion representing 464 percent growth on prior year.
At $26,50, the market’s biggest counter by capitalization, Delta was 15 percent above prior week.
The market was not short of fallers as MedTech eased 15 percent to 14 cents. Mashonaland Holdings let go of 14 percent to settle at 60 cents from 70 cents in the previous week. At $7,10, Proplastics gave up 1,39 percent while Simbisa lost 1,31 percent to $8,61.
Agriculture concern, Ariston gave up a marginal 0,28 percent to close pegged at $1,87 completing all the week’s fallers.
Edgars, Fidelity and FML remained unchanged at $1, 19,45 cents and $3,70 respectively. Also maintaining prior week levels were Nampak, Natfoods and NTS that closed at $1,50, $45,25 and 3,72 cents in that order.
