By Stephen Chandisareva
HARARE – The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) closed the opening day of the week marginally positive amidst a seesaw trading pattern.
It’s becoming uneasy to predict market performance given the recent trading pattern where stocks rise and fall.
Something that could be leading to this see-saw battle could be the structured currency announcement.
“Otherwise, it’s difficult to say with any certainty what direction will be taken,” said economist Yona Banda.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative, as 13 stocks lost, relative to 8 gainers.
The mainstream ZSE All Share Index gained 0.11% to close at 496,818.79 points.
Equities investors therefore gained $92.25 billion as the market capitalization settled at $39.35 trillion by the end of the day’s trading activities.
The Top 10 Index 0.05% to end at 218,347.44 points. However, the Medium Cap Index was down 0.99% to 2,105,266.06 points.
Clothing retailer Truworths topped the advancers’ chart with a price appreciation of 20% after its half year unit sales increased by 5.8%.
The company revealed that sales and profitability continue to be adversely affected by “The restrictive pricing laws, which give an unfair advantage to the informal sector”.
“The importation of substandard clothing and footwear by the informal sector which sells at below production cost and duties payable.”
Resultantly, the Small Cap Index gained the most, up 19.83% to close at 12,625,987.48 points.
A total of 1.67 million shares valued at $2.72 billion were exchanged in 196 deals.
Econet led the volume chart with 758 600 shares, while it also led the value chart with deals worth $1.4 billion.
There was bloodshed on ETFs. Datvest ETF shed 2.37% to $18.5000. Morgan & Co Made In Zim ETF lost 0.56% to finish at $18.0000. OML ETF eased 0.03% to close at $79.0010.
Tigere REIT fell 0.26% to close at $609.3622.
On the VFEX, African Sun topped the gainers chart, up 7.91% to close at US$0.0300. First Capital Bank Limited rose 6.96% to US$0.0215. National Foods was up 1.51% to end at US$1.4712.
SeedCo International suffered the most, down 20% to US$0.2415. Padenga plunged 15.36% to US$0.1305.
Caledonia eased 11.11% to US$16.0002. Simbisa was 6.34% lower at US$0.3350. Innscor Africa Limited fell 0.28% to US$0.4477. Axia lost 0.22% to US$0.0898.