ZSE Market Commentary 16 January 2024
Heavies lift the market…
The market continued to record gains for the third session in a row as demand in selected heavies continued to surge. The All-Share Index advanced 5.06% to 287,342.12pts while, the Blue Chip index surged 6.31% to 129,655.62pts mainly anchored by gains in Delta. The Mid Cap Index was up 1.42% to settle at 1,041,825.51pts while, the Agriculture Index added 1.18% to 690.83pts. Construction group Masimba Holdings headlined the gainers list of the day as it jumped 15.00% to be restricted at circuit breaker level of $1,063.7500. Beverages producer Delta buttressed prior session gains as it inched up 14.62% to close at $5,865.8634 closing heavily bid at 15% while, Proplastics ticked 13.22% to close trading at a VWAP $739.4674. Dairy producer Dairibord edged up 11.95% to settle at $655.00000 while, sugar processor Star Africa fastened the top five gainers list of the day on a 2.03% ascent to $9.5360. Trading in the negative territory were Zimre Holdings and Econet that lost 0.42% and 0.29% respectively, to see the former settle at $173.9839 and the latter at $1,229.8847. Insurer FML continued to lose ground in the session as it retreated 0.19% to $995.6719 on the back of continuous supply following a cautionary announcement done last week. Property concern First Mutual shed 0.12% to close at $339.0999 while, roofing and pipe producer Turnall dropped a meagre 0.01% to $36.0500.
Activity aggregates continued to improve in the session as volumes traded hopped 44.90% to see 5.84m shares worth $6.74bn exchange hands. This represented a 57.20% increase in turnover. Rarely traded counter Unifreight drove the volume aggregates of the day as it contributed 66.20% of the total. In the value category trading was mainly confined in Unifreight and Delta that claimed a combined 84.13% of the outturn. In the ETF category, the three funds that registered price movements, closed pointing northwards. Cass Saddle, Old Mutual Top 10 and Datvest MCS edged up 13.85%, 6.30% and 1.62% respectively. The Tigere REIT was stable at $390.0000 as 12,888 units traded while, Revitus had no trades-efe