By ETimes
The local bourse ended bullish on Friday to halt a one-day negative outing as the World Bank (WB) revised up Zimbabwe’s economic growth projections both for 2023 and 2024 in its latest Global Economic Prospects.
WB has revised its Zimbabwe gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 3.5% this year from a forecast in June 2023 of 3.4%.
This is in sync with Treasury projections that economic growth will fall to 3.5% in 2024 from 5.5% in 2023.
However, some say the anticipated impact of the El Nino phenomenon being forecasted for the 2023–24 summer cropping season on agricultural output and declining mineral commodity prices attributable to the global economic slowdown will result in an economic slowdown this year.
The southern African nation’s GDP growth for 2023 is estimated at 4.5%, up from the initial forecast of 2.9%.
At close, the mainstream ZSE All Share Index rose by 2.70% to close at 266,752.43 points. Market breadth was positive as investor sentiment was very strong, with 14 price gainers compared with 6 losers.
The Top 10 Index gained the most, up 3.17% to end at 119,063.78 points.
However, the Medium Cap Index lost 0.26% to settle at 1,013,481.28 points.
As expected, the Small Cap Index was flat at 5,482,815.60 points.
Equities investors at the ZSE, therefore, earned $748.25 billion as the market capitalisation closed at $20.47 trillion.
Turnover rose 141.59% to $6.94 billion.
Morgan & Co Multisector ETF eased $1.9500 to $513.0000 and Old Mutual Top 10 ETF lost $2.4252 to $40.5760.
Datvest Modified Consumer Staples ETF added $0.0005 to $11.8105, Cass Saddle Agriculture ETF and Morgan & Co Made In Zimbabwe remained flat at $5.5605 and $513.0000 respectively.
Tigere REIT eased $0.4700 to $377.0000 and Revitus Property Opportunities traded unchanged at $600.0000-HARARE