Market Comment - 29.12.2022

Market gains maintained… The market maintained gains in the penultimate session of the year as four of the indices we review closed the day pointing northwards. The All-share Index gained 0.47% to close at 18409.23pts while, the Blue-Chips Index advanced 0.48pts to 11,528.21pts. The Agriculture Index rose 0.12% to 71.51pts as the Mid-Cap Index increased by a mere 0.02% to 35,485.89pts. Bankers First Capital led the best performers of the day on a 14.87% surge to close at $13.7368 trailed by sugar processor Star Africa that jumped 14.09% to $1.9616. The duo of Nampak and Proplastics gained 12.63% and 12.06% to see the former close at $9.0100 and the latter at $30.2574. Conglomerate Innscor fastened the top five winners of the day as it edged up 11.27% to $625.0630. Property concern Mashonaland Holdings led the laggards of the day as it declined 12.46% to end pegged $9.5880 followed by African Sun that plunged 7.14% to $23.2157. Telecommunication company Econet dropped 6.13% to trade at $84.1460 while, Axia reversed prior sessions gains as it retreated 3.62% to $110.1093. Retailer Ok Zimbabwe capped the top five worst performers of the day on a 2.59% slump to close pegged at $32.1009. Activity aggregates improved as volumes swelled 450.03% to see 7.09m shares exchange hands while, turnover ballooned 74.90% to $457.53m. The duo of Ok Zimbabwe and Econet drove the volume aggregate as they contributed a combined 74.67% of the total. Econet led the value leaders of the as it claimed 35.41% of the aggregate, followed by Ok Zimbabwe and Delta with respective contributions of 23.63% and 16.38%. Elsewhere, on the VFEX SeedCo International was the only active counter, and it rose 0.30% to close at US$0.2995. Willdale closed the session pegged at $1.8000 after trading scrappy 3,000 shares post the release of its FY22 results in which they reported a PAT of $4.31bn.