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Enacy Mapakame

Bulls dominated trades on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) last week as local currency depreciated against the green back on the illegal parallel market.

In the week to Friday, high demand for foreign currency pushed the exchange rate to as high as $25 against the USD, while the official interbank was at $17,24.

This prompted the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to issue warning against street exchange rate manipulators for “exerting pressure on the forex market with the intention of causing instability to a market that had held steady over the past four months”.

The RBZ indicated its Financial Intelligence Unit would investigate and freeze accounts of the perpetrators as such malpractice was not warranted as money supply had remained under control for the past five months.

During the week under review, a bullish sentiment prevailed, which saw 32 counters close in the positive against only four fallers to set a positive market breadth of 28.

This resulted in the primary indicator, the ZSE All Share Index closing 5 percent ahead of prior week to 251 points, in a charge led by mid tiers and penny stocks.

Volumes and values, however, went down as weekly values slowed 65 percent to $35,73 million contributed mainly by Old Mutual, Delta and Econet that accounted for 24 percent, 22 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Volumes of the week fell 49 percent after 33 million shares exchanged driven by Mashonaland Holdings that accounted for 45 percent of the aggregate.

The property concern, Mash Holdings also headlined risers with an 84 percent increase to 15,13 cents followed by only listed media group, Zimpapers, which put on 68 percent to close at 23,6 cents.

Brick making firm, Willdale put on 38 percent to 4,5 cents while agriculture concern — Ariston extended gains by 26 percent to 28,7 cents.

Property group, Dawn put on 22 percent to settle at 9 cents as Medtech maintained its fine run with an 18 percent gain to 1,8 cents.

Insurance giant, Old Mutual jumped 14 percent to $39 as it also became the week’s biggest value driver, accounting for 24 percent of the total turnover.

High demand drove nickel producer, Bindura to a 12 percent increase as it reached a high of 20,38 cents.

Cement producer, PPC also firmed 12 percent to $4,59 while peers, Lafarge, wrapped the 10 gainers with a 11 percent gain to $2.

The market was not short of fallers. On the downside, Powerspeed led the bears with a 16,67 percent to settle at 24,5 cents while Art went down 15 percent to 12,3 cents.

Banking group, CBZ bank came off 7 percent to 64 cents, while construction allied products manufacturers, Turnall slipped 3 percent to close at 11 cents.