Industrials scratches out gains

Published: 17 September 2013

ZSE's Industrials scratched out modest gains on Tuesday as President Mugabe was due to officially open the Parliament to effectively set the legislative agenda for the First Session of the 8th Parliament of Zimbabwe.

The market remains predominantly a sellers market with only a few counters generating insignificant interest from buyers.

The Industrials Index gained 0.37 points or 0.20% to 188.15 while the Minings Index remained stable at 48.56c as there was no activity recorded on the mining counters.

Daily market turnover closed above the psychological $1 million after improving to $1.217 million on a volume of 4.165 million shares compared with yesterday's $567 704 on a volume of 2.113 million shares.

Heavyweights traded mixed with Delta and Econet trading in the red but were largely outweighed by gains in OK Zimbabwe and Natfoods.

OK Zimbabwe remained in favour after advancing 0.99c to 25c with buyers looking strong at the same price while dual listed Old Mutual recovered a modest 0.01c to 225.01c.

Natfoods added 3c to 218c ahead of its final dividend of 3c record date on Friday while Innsoor remains stable at 81c also ahead of final dividend or 1c record date this Friday.

Also trading on the upside was Dawn Properties which recovered 0.10c to 1c and TSL 3c up at 30c. Zimplow Holdings added 0.2& to 3.75c.

On the downside PG Industries led the pack after losing a significant 0.20c or 66.67% to 0.1c followed by Zeco which eased 0.04c or 40% to 0.06c.

RTG eased 0.20c or 11.76% to 1.5c while Meikles traded 1 c or 3.45% weaker at 28c. DZHL dropped 0.51c or 2.83% to 17.49c.

Hippo closed 105c buyers only after reports that the group is targeting to export more than 217 000 tonnes of sugar to the European Union, as a way of boosting the company's earnings.

Afdis remained buyers 32c and sellers 40c only amid reports that the firm is planning to install a multimilion-dollar bottling line to modernise their production and improving capacity utilisation by June 2014.

The Datvest All Share Index was however little changed as it managed a modest 0.02 points or 0.01 % gain to 125.35 while the FBC ZSE-10 Index eased 0.14 points or 0.11% to 129.38 weighed down by losses in Delta and Eoonet.

The Tourism Index dropped 2.18 points or 7.72% to 26.06 as RTG waded back into negative territory.

The Truworths Retail Index advanced 11.09 points or 3.57% to 321.64 taking its gains in the year to 102.99% with OK Zimbabwe steering today's gains.
- zfn