eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
The Zimbabwe capital markets outperformed regional peers during the 11 months to November 2023, according to regional statistics.
An African Financials report on Top 30 Companies in Sub Saharan Africa, which shows the region’s stock markets with the exception of South Africa – rose by 7,2 percent in US$ terms in November but went down by 12,8 percent year to date.
But eleven of the fourteen Sub-Saharan Africa’s (excluding South Africa’s) stock markets have recorded positive US dollar returns for the 11-month period, according to the report.
“Markets rising in November 2023 include Zimbabwe, Nigeria, BRVM Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Botswana which rose by 20,3 percent, 18,2 percent, 5,7 percent, 2 percent and 1,7 percent respectively,” said African Financials in the report.
Markets falling in November 2023 include Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda which fell by 31,4 percent, 0,5 percent, 0,3 percent and 0,2 percent respectively.
The region faced economic headwinds such as currency volatility, as most regional currencies depreciated against the US dollar.
Month on month, the Malawi Kwacha fell 31 percent following its devaluation while South African rand also depreciated marginally by 1,1 percent. However, the Nigerian naira rose 13 percent during the month while the Botswana pula was also among the regional currencies that appreciated albeit a marginal 0,3 percent.
But for the 11th month period, Nigeria’s naira went down by 41,6 percent followed by Malawi at 38,9 percent. Zambia, Kenya and Ghana eased by 23,8 percent, 19,5 percent and 15 percent respectively. The rand fell 10,2 percent during the year to November while Botswana was also down 6,4 percent.
Other currencies had minor changes during the month. For Zimbabwe, its currency depreciated by a marginal 1 percent in November but fell the heaviest during the year to November, going down by 88 percent.
“The US dollar was the functional currency until 2018 when the RTGS was adopted. From 2018 to June 2021 we used the RTGS rate at the Old Mutual implied FX rate. This came to an end in June 2020. Thereafter, we are using the RBZ month-end FX auction rate,” explained African Financials.
