There is more trading on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange after transaction costs were reduced, effective 10 January. Leading stockbroker Securities Africa (www.securitiesafrica.com) quotes Kingdom Financial Holdings (the website is given as www.kingdom.co.zw but wasn’t working when I tried) as saying: “Reflecting the reduction is transaction costs, daily trades shot up to USD 2.8m on 11 January 2010 and USD 2.4m on 12 January 2010 compared to only USD 338,000 recorded on the first trading of 2010 on 4 January 2010 and an average of USD 900,000 during the week ended 10 January 2010.
“The bullish sentiment on the ZSE saw share prices responding positively and this coupled with the increase in turnover explains the rise in the Industrial Index by 4.57% on 12 January 2010 followed by a 4.74% rise on 13 January 2010.”
Trading last week (to 22 January) was more than 435 million shares worth US$6.2 million, according to the Herald newspaper (www.herald.co.zw). The market ended marginally lower with the industrial index down 5% and the mining index 1%. The paper quoted one unnamed stockbroker as saying many investors may start to move into money markets as more stable, and this could see portfolio restructing and lower prices, as well as some potential equity bargains.