In the penultimate week of trading in September, a turnover of K20 million was recorded in the Zambian capital markets. 94% of that turnover was on the corporate bond market with the balance on the equities market.
Equity Markets Summary
In the week ended 20th September 2019, a total of 1,741,407 shares were transacted in 84 trades, yielding a market turnover of K1,200,330. Trading activity was recorded in AEL Zambia, AIRTEL, CEC ZAMBIA, LAFARGE, STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, ZAMBEEF and ZANACO. The LuSE All Share Index (LASI) closed at 4,371.04 points.
The LASI has continued on a downward trajectory in the second half of 2019 albeit marginally compared to the first half of the year. The market closed on a capitalization of K56,998,673,690.57 including Shoprite Holdings and K22,759,467,710.57 excluding Shoprite Holdings.
Bond Markets Summary
During the week, bonds of total face value of K27,765,000 were transacted in 11 trades, yielding a market value sales of K19,083,000. Sales marginally fell but it was the number of trades that largely reduced to 11 compared to 27 in the previous week.
The 3 and 10-year corporate bonds were the most popular during the week with yield rates of 10 and 13 percent respectively.
Perspective
Sales in the equities market slumped by 24% in the 3rd week of September despite recording an 85% increase in the number of shares traded compared to the previous week.
ZANACO took the lion’s share of trading during the week with 1.7 million shares being traded with a turnover of K1.105 million. The security remains lowly priced compared to Airtel’s security which was the most expensive stock at K31.5 traded during the week.
The bond market too continued on its marginal decline in sales recording a 4% drop from the previous week. In the final week, corporate bond sales will have to increase by a factor of 3x in order to match the August 2019 sales else September risks being the weakest month on record in 2019 for the bond market.
Important Announcements
“the Board of Directors advises the Shareholders of Prima Reinsurance PLC (“the Company”) that the Loss Per Share (“LPS”) for the six –month period ended 30th June 2019 is expected to be approximately 50% higher than for the six-month period ended 30th June 2018”.
“the board advises the Shareholders of the Company that the Earnings Per Share (“EPS”) for the six-month period ended 30 June 2019 was (0.98) kwacha which was a decline of approximately 56% compared to the six-month period ended 30 June 2018”.
