The Lusaka Securities Exchange all Share index (LASI) has marginally lost 0.23% of its value since the beginning of this year, according to a financial analysis conducted at the close of week 7.
The LASI is a series of numbers that show the changing average value of the share prices of all the 23 companies on a stock exchange, and which is used as a measure of how well a market is performing.
The LASI opened the year at 4264.51 on the first Friday of 2020. Hereafter, the index continued to dip as it had done in 2019 until a subtle rebound which is now the upward turning point at week 5, as shown in the chart below from Financial analytics Zambia.
A varying LASI has an impact on the market capitilisation that measures the “wealth” of listed companies. On 3rd January 2020, the market cap of the LuSE was at K56.4 Billion. Fast forward to valentine’s day, the LuSE’s market cap stood at K57.1 billion.
Despite a tapering LASI, the increase in market cap was due to the debut of ZAFICCO on the LUSE whose K824 million share valuation has now been captured. The tree processing company’s 400 million shares had their listing confirmed at a ceremony where the Minister of Finance Dr. Bwalya Ngandu and IDC’s CEO Mateyo Kaluba rang the trading bell that would inevitably lead to the increase in market cap for the LuSE.