Market Comment - 19.12.2022

Market upbeat in week opener... The ZSE ended today''s session in the black as the primary All Share index gained 2.45% to 15719.01pts while, the Top 10 Index was 3.51% higher at 9279.28pts. The ZSE Agriculture added a negligible 0.00004% to settle 70.75pts as the Mid-Cap Index went up 0.23% to finish at 34685.57pts. ART led the top five winners on a 14.71% jump to $13.0000 while, beverages giant Delta rose 7.64% to $285.6294. Sugar processor Star Africa firmed up 6.40% to $1.4988 as insurer Fidelity advanced 5.96% to $24.0000. Conglomerate Innscor capped the set as it climbed 4.66% to end at $380.7618 on constraint supply. Leading the laggards was First Mutual Limited that lost 2.89% to $23.3053 while, Ariston Holdings gave up 1.76% to $3.7480. Ecocash Holdings shed 0.96% to $35.56949 as bankers FBC Holdings retreated 0.83% to $62.0000. Completing the top five fallers group was hotelier African Sun which dropped 0.59%, leaving its price at $24.3000. Activity aggregates suffered a knock as turnover declined 71.96% to $86m while, the volumes dropped 71.71% to 1.21m shares. Delta and Innscor were the major value drivers of the day contributing a combined 83.38% of the outturn as Ecocash, Axia and Econet added 3.83%,3.64% and 3.14% respectively. Volume leaders were Star Africa and Delta which claimed a combined 73.64%. Thirteen counters gained against eight that lost ground leaving the market with positive breadth of five. On the VFEX, Padenga traded 83,488 shares as its price increased 0.94% to USD$0.2281. SeedCo went up 0.17% to USD$0.2995 on 16,518 shares while, Simbisa dropped 0.03% to USD$0.3100 as it traded 27,977 shares. The ETFs traded a cumulative total of 9,010,266 units in which Old Mutual, the only gainer traded 8,980,100 of these units. Datvest and Cass Saddle pared 2.97% and 1.69% to close at $1.5525 and $1.7500 apiece. A net foreign outflow position was registered as a mere $15,005.00 worth of foreign sales were recorded against a nil purchase position.