Market Comment - 24.03.2022

Market weakens in Thursday''s session... The market continued to lose ground in Thursday’s session as the primary All-Share Index pulled back 0.25% to 15494.05pts while, the Industrial Index lost a similar 0.25% to close at 51196.99pts. The Blue-chips Index gave up 0.70% to 10295.27pts dragged down mainly by the trio in Ecocash Holdings, Delta and Econet. The Mid-cap Index emerged as the only gainer as it rebounded 1.27% to 25199.13pts. Leading the decliners of the day was National Tyre Services which dropped 16.67% to $7.0000 while, General Beltings Holdings followed on a 6.17% fall to $1.5000. Mashonaland Holdings declined 3.00% to $3.1001, as agricultural firm Zimplow Holdings went down 2.86% to close at $19.4286. Ecocash Holdings trimmed 2.28% to $63.6164 as it completed the top five losers of the day. The duo of banking intuitions in Getbucks and NMB jumped 20.00% and 16.25% respectively to close the day at $6.0000 and $14.0000 apiece. Hotelier African Sun was up $10.30% to $7.0310 while, sugar refinery Star Africa advanced 9.31% to $1.4252. Capping the top five winners of the day was media group Zimbabwe Newspapers on a 7.14% rise to $3.0000. Activity aggregates were depressed in the session as the volume of shares traded slumped 70.52% to 3.32m while, turnover dipped 73.76% to $200.18m. First Mutual Holdings claimed a huge chunk accounting for 68.48% of the shares that traded leaving the other counters scrambling for the remaining 31.52%. Top value drivers of the day were National Foods (32.09%), First Mutual Holdings (20.57%), Delta (16.39%), Econet (11.63%) and Innscor (10.83%). On the ETF front, Old Mutual made a 10.90% rebound to close at $9.9612 on 7,892 units. Datvest improved 0.75% to $1.6774 on 1,686,008 units as Morgan ETF shrunk 0.71% to $13.9049 on 2,630 units. On the VFEX Bindura went up 2.02% to USD$0.0506 while, Padenga was stable at USD$0.2100.