eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Equities on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) maintained an upward trajectory in the week, which saw overall market value reach the $1 trillion mark, sustained by gains in blue chips.
Since beginning of the year, the ZSE has risen by 225 percent. During the week to Wednesday, the ZSE All Share Index rose 20 percent to 8 586 points while the blue chips, the ZSE Top 10 Index paced the fastest with a 22 percent increase to 4 882 points.
The ZSE Top 15 Index advanced 21 percent to 5 549 points from 4 557 points in the previous week. At 20 488 points, the Medium Cap was 16 percent above prior week while the Small Cap advanced 11 percent to 249 542 points.
Total market capitalisation rose 20 percent to reach $1 trillion, the highest it has ever reached in over a decade.
Fast food giant Simbisa headlined risers for the week with a 55 percent increase to close at $69,99 from $44,89 after the firm reported a positive earnings performance for the year to June 30, 2021 despite the Covid-19 challenges.
The group reported revenue more than doubled to $18 billion. In Zimbabwe revenue rose 64 percent on the back of a 34 percent increase in average spend with customer counts rising by 8 percent.
The duo of property firm — Mash Holdings and brick maker Willdale rose by 50 percent each to settle at $4,37 and $4,50 respectively. Axia advanced 44 percent to close at $33,33 while MedTech wrapped the week’s top five risers with a 41 percent increase to 29,95 cents.
Other gains were seen in telecoms giant Econet which rose 33 percent to $51,91, its 12-month high while the duo of Masimba and OK Zimbabwe rose by 32 percent each to $53,15 and $21,84 respectively.
The market’s biggest counter by value, Delta, put on 21 percent to settle at $109,45. Afdis, African Sun, Hippo and Proplastics rose by 20 percent each to close the week at $90, $9,62 , $225,75 and $30 in that order. Hospitality group, African Sun indicated revenue growth jumped 20 percent on the back of an improvement in occupancy level which was 24 percent for the half year to June 30, 2021 compared to the same period in the prior year.
Peers, RTG were on the positive after adding 17 percent of value to $6 as the hospitality group remains upbeat of recovery in the tourism sector and its performance inspired by the gradual easing of lockdowns as well as the global vaccination programmes which should open up global travel.
The market was not, however, short of laggards. Diversified resources group, RioZim fell the hardest with a 10 percent decline to $25 followed by property firm, FMP which gave up 6 percent to $13,50.
NTS eased 2 percent to $8 while GetBucks backtracked by 1,9 percent to close at $8,04. Insurance group, Fidelity wrapped the week’s fallers with a marginal decline 0f 0,1 percent to close the week at $8,99.
Lafarge and Zeco were the only counters that remained unchanged to close at $93,90 and 0,12 cents respectively.
