eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Stocks continued falling with three of the benchmark indices closing pointing southwards on waning demand in the market’s heavies.
In the week to Wednesday, the ZSE All Share Index slid 0,29 percent to 157,63 points compared to prior week’s 158,09 points.
The ZSE Top 10 Index eased 1 percent to close pegged at 157 points on losses on the market’s top cap counters.
At 526,04 points, the Industrials Index was 0,33 percent below prior week levels of 527,77 points.
The Minings Index, now with only two active counters- Bindura and RioZim, was the only index to close in the black after putting on 1,58 percent to 216,5 points helping narrow the year to date losses to 4,92 percent.
The week closed with a total market value of $20,899 billion representing a 0,38 percent decline, on the back of losses recorded across board.
Dragging the market were Dairibord which had a 11,43 percent decline to 15,5 cents from 17,5 in the previous week while largest retail group, OK Zimbabwe lost 9,22 percent of value to 29,05 cents.
Sugar manufacturer, Star Africa eased 6,78 percent to 1,1 cent while property firm FMP lost 6,25 percent to 7,5 cents from prior week’s 8 cents.
Cassava capped the week’s top five fallers with a 3,61 percent decline to $1,47.
Telecoms giant, Econet retreated 2,38 percent to $$148. Other losses were recorded in Masimba which gave up 0,89 percent of value to settle at 8,92 cents while financial services group FCB let go of 0,7 percent to 7,1 percent. FCB indicated it has put on hold proposals to unbundle its non-banking business and separately list them on the local bourse.
Another banking group, NMB declined 0,21 percent to 23,95 cents, capping the week’s bears.
Losses were offset by gains in NTS, Unifreight and Powerspeed that put on 20 percent each to close pegged at 2,16 cents, 5,76 cents and 17,4 cents respectively.
The country’s only listed media group, Zimpapers, which is the year’s top riser to date, rose 15,65 percent to 6,8 cents while hospitality group African Sun jumped 15,38 percent to 15 cents compared to 13 cents recorded in the previous week.
Industrial holdings group, TSL jumped 14,75 percent to 70 cents after reporting earnings growth for financial year 2018 spurred by positive agriculture season, particularly the improved tobacco output.
Property firm, ZPI advanced 13,88 percent to 3,2 cents while ZB put on 10,56 percent to 39,25 cents.
Other gains were recorded in FBC that ticked 9,34 percent to 35 cents while Simbisa and Proplastics rose by 7,12 percent to 80 cents and 5 percent to 21 cents.
Regional cement maker, PPC rose by a marginal 0,01 percent to $1,80. In the nine months to December 2018, PPC said volumes in Zimbabwe grew by low single digits compared to the prior year for the same period, due to operational challenges experienced in the third quarter of the financial year.
Management is implementing initiatives to mitigate the impact of inflation and liquidity constraints on the business and on the broader PPC Group.
The market’s biggest stock by value, Delta added a marginal 0,41 percent to $3,19. On the resources side, Bindura put on 5,38 percent to 8,42 cents subsequently pushing the Mining Index up.
During the week, fellow miner, Falgold was suspended from trading its shares pending release of its financial statements for the year to 30 September 2018 leaving only two active resources counters. Coal miner, Hwange was suspended in November last year after Government placed it under administration to allow the company to return to profitability.
Peers, RioZim, remained flat at $1,85.
Also remaining flat were Nampak and Meikles that closed at 30 cents and 65 cents respectively. During the week under review,
Meikles indicated it has rescued its assets from auctioning after reaching a deal with the other party, who had been granted leave to auction the company’s assets.
Meikles’ assets were earmarked for auctioning by Core Solutions after it received court’s nod to auction the former’s assets in form of shares in order to recover an outstanding overdue amount.
Padenga, Lafarge, SeedCo and FML also maintained prior week levels of $1,05, $1,33, $2 and 14 cents respectively.
