By ETimes
HARARE – The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) opened the week in the red on Monday as just 12 stocks appreciated amid exchange rate instability.
After the announcement that the Treasury and monetary authorities are working on a “structured currency” there has been a wait-and-see attitude, and as of Monday, the black-market rate was US$1 to ZWL15.5x while the interbank rate was US$1 to ZWL11 671.
Treasury chief Mthuli Ncube says the southern African nation may tie its currency to tangible assets like gold under fresh proposals under consideration by the government.
“The idea going forward is to manage the growth of liquidity, which has a high correlation to money supply growth and inflation. The way to do that is to link the exchange rate to some hard asset, such as gold,” Ncube said Monday during a press briefing to update on a meeting of African finance ministers to be held in Zimbabwe by the UN Economic Commission for Africa later this month.
“To do that, you have to have some sort of currency board-type system in place where the growth of domestic liquidity is constrained by the value of the asset that is backing the currency.”
At the close of transactions, the mainstream ZSE All Share Index lost 1.65% to close at 555,699.35 points, while the market value of all listed equities dropped by 58.26% to $1.84 billion.
OK Zimbabwe led the most traded equities with 1.53 million shares worth $1.37 billion. Econet came in second with 171 700 shares valued at $371.13 million.
Investors booked a loss of about $1.05 trillion at the close of Monday’s trading session. Market capitalisation stood at $44.45 trillion.
The Top 10 Index was down 2.48% to settle at 250,063.47 points.
The Medium Cap Index was the only gainer, up 3.78% to close at 2,226,910.54 points.
The Small Cap Index was flat at 9,851,268.27 points.
Old Mutual Top 10 ETF went further down by $9.8036 to $85.8439 and Datvest Modified Consumer Staples ETF retreated by $0.2775 to $19.5726.
CASS Saddle Agriculture ETF gained $0.0114 closing at $8.5000, Morgan & Co Made In Zimbabwe ticked $0.0725 up to $16.0725 and Morgan & Co Multi Sector ETF had a $69.5000 jump to $600.0000.
Tigere Real Estate Investment Trust and Revitus Property Opportunities remained flat at $605.0000 and $560.0000 respectively.
On the US dollar denominated bourse, First Capital Bank Limited appreciated the most, gaining 19.09% to US$0.0262. SeedCo International was 16.15% higher at US$0.3200. Padenga rose 11.37% to US$0.1566.
Simbisa appreciated by 0.55% to US$0.3620. Innscor Africa Limited jumped 0.44% to US$0.4495. Axia added 0.22% to US$0.0902.
There was only one faller on the VFEX. Hotelier African Sun eased 20% to close at US$0.0320.