Stocks traded mixed closing the week to Wednesday with marginal gains as three of the four indices closed in the positive reversing prior week’s losses.
This comes amid the suspension of Statutory Instrument 122 of 2017 to allow companies and individuals with offshore and free funds to import basic commodities that are currently in short supply.
Market watchers say the move, although welcome to avert shortages on the market, will have far reaching consequences to local industry, which was beginning to recover from years of battling low competitiveness, depressed demand and low capacity utilisation.
Goods that can now be imported include cement, bottled water, packaging material, body creams, pizza base, animal fat, cooking oil, agro chemicals, stock feed, cereals, fertilisers, wheat flour and ice cream.
Now local industry will have to adjust to the competition from imports, usually priced cheaper than locally produced goods. A lot of players, including the informal sector are set to capitalise on the temporary reprieve.
On the equities market, the primary indicator, the ZSE All Share Index gained 3,13 percent to close pegged at 179,9 points while the ZSE Top 10 added 2,52 percent on gains in the market’s heavies.
The Industrials Index put on 3,25 percent to 604 points from previous week’s 585,53 points.
The Mining Index was the only to close pointing southwards after it let go of 3,66 percent to 216,96 points dragged by a 13 percent decline in Bindura.
Total market capitalisation for the week rose 2 percent to $19,8 billion.
Turnover let go of a hefty 49 percent to $32 million from $63 million achieved in the previous week as demand remained depressed. Total volumes also went down 24 percent after 52 million shares exchanged compared to 68 million in the comparable week.
Driving both volumes and value for the week were Old Mutual, Econet, Axia, and CBZ.
Headlining risers for the week were Medtech that jumped 200 percent to 0,03 cents from 0,01 cents followed by Seed Co which rose 72 percent to $1,51.
Banking group, NMB rose 36,65 percent to close pegged at 23,64 cents while crocodile breeder Padenga put on 26,20 percent to 89,92 cents.
Asbestos manufacturer — Turnall- wrapped up the week’s top five risers with a 25 percent increase to 5 cents.
Other gains were recorded in brick making and plastic firms, Willdale and Proplastics which each put on 20 percent to close pegged at 0,72 cents and 17,41 cents respectively.
Regional cement producer, PPC added 19,23 percent of value to $1,55 while Delta and Dairibord increased by 18,48 percent to $3,84 and 18,72 percent to 21,37 cents respectively.
Hospitality group, African Sun put on 17,47 percent to close pegged at 16 cents.
On the downside, insurance firm ZHL let go of 29,53 percent to 2,1 cents while Art lost 18,26 percent to 7,52 cents. Insurance giant, Old Mutual eased a hefty 16,75 percent to $6,83. Nickel producer — Bindura lost 13,04 percent ground to 7 cents compared to 8,05 cents recorded in the previous week.
Financial services group, FBC lost 11,23 percent of value to 31,07 cents from previous week’s 35 cents.
Other losses were recorded in banking group, CBZ that eased 9,62 percent to close pegged at 15,6 cents while SeedCo International lost 5,9 percent to $2,39.
Telecoms giant Econet lost 5 percent to close pegged at $2,43 while Meikles eased 4 percent to 70 cents.
Other than Bindura which closed in the negative, the other three mining counters, Falgold, Hwange and RioZim remained flat at 2,5 cents, 4,25 cents and $2 respectively.
Also maintaining prior week levels were BAT- $38; Dawn- 2,9 cents; Fidelity Life- 6,5 cents; Lafarge- $1,53; Powerspeed- 14 and TSL at 77,5 cents.
