Industrials falter again

Published: 16 January 2014

ZSE Industrials faltered again on Friday as activity on the market remained depressed with only 9 counters trading.

Industrials Index eased 0.95 or 0.47% to 201.04 dragged by losses in heavyweights Delta and Old Mutual, which dropped 1.43% and 1.19% each to 138c and 250c respectively.

Conglomerate Innscor and telecoms giant Econet closed unchanged at 60c and 80c respectively while heavyweight retailer OK Zimbabwe closed buyers and sellers only at 19c and 20c respectively.

Only two counters closed in the green, Cigarette manufacturer BAT adding 0.08% to 1201c and Meikles advancing 1c or 5.26% to 20c after reports that a unit of the firm, Meikles Stores will save about $1million after rescinding its earlier decision to lay off 55 workers last year.

Minings Index remained stable at 45.79 with no activity in the mining counters.

Daily market turnover significantly improved to $904 400 on a volume of 1.882 million shares against yesterday's $335 872 on a volume of 1.531 million shares. Meanwhile, weekly turnover also increased to $3280 million on a volume of 11.038 million shares versus last week's $1.510 million on a volume of 5.814 million shares.

Pelhams led the top-fallers, shedding 50% to 0.05c. Meanwhile, Fidelity life closed unchanged at 13c amid reports that the firm has restructured its senior management in line with the company's growth strategy focusing on new local and foreign business initiatives.

CBZ is one of the 4 counters which traded unchanged on the bourse at 15c.

Data from the ZSE shows that a post-dollarisation record of $485.8 million of shares were traded in 2013, an 8.4% increase on 2012's $448.2 million, and ahead of the $477.5 million traded in 2011 and $391 million in 2010. Trades dropped to 19 002 from 21 426 as the average trade rose to $25 565 from $20 920. Volume traded in 2013 amount to 2.998 bin shares compared with 3.51 bin in 2012.

There are no changes to the FBC ZSE 10, although TSL is now with $4 million of making this elite club. From 10th position, Old Mutual leapt over ABC and Natfoods, which has tumbled from 7th to the bottom of the Top 10. SeedCo has overtaken Hippo to be ranked as the largest agri-industrial concern on the ZSE, while BAT moved ahead of OK Zimbabwe to become the fourth biggest company by market cap, its highest position since dollarisation.

In the 11-20 market cap zone, Barclays has overtaken FBC, and lies just behind CBZ in position 13. Padenga and PPC are the new entries in the top 20 at the expense of FML and Colcom. Edgars in position 21 looks placed to re-enter the top 20 for the first time in nearly a year. Those to add shares since the last Zrn shares update in November include Afdis (700 000), Bindura (19 million), Delta (55 000), Edgars (250 000), NMB (100.1 million) and OK (558 800).

- zfn