DSE trading plunges nearly by 50 percent in Christmas week

DSE workers follow proceedings during a past trading session in Dar es Salaam. PHOTO | FILE

By Josephine Christopher

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Dar es Salaam. Performance of the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) dropped by nearly a half last week as investors prepared to celebrate Christmas at the weekend.

The weekly turnover dropped to Sh1.49 billion - down from Sh2.82 billion the preceding week - while the volume of traded shares decreased to 4.38 million from 8.7 million shares previously, according to market reports.

An analysis by the Vertex International Securities Ltd showed that CRDB Bank was the top market mover - accounting for 75.08 percent of the turnover - followed by TBL (with 13.62 percent) and NMB Bank (7.06 percent). Activities at the trading counters were dominated by foreign investors who traded 86.57 percent of the shares.

The Vertex capital markets manager, Mr Ahmed Nganya, said that, regardless of low activities last week, there are positive prospects that the market would pick up in the coming weeks.

“We believe the performance will improve next week if prices continue to increase,” he said.

Price increases were recorded in CRDB (which gained by 7.84 percent, to close at Sh275), and Swissport (which gained by 2.04 percent to close at Sh1,000).

Losing counters were JATU - which lost by 2.27 percent, to close at Sh430 per share - and NMB (which lost by 1.96 percent to close at Sh2,000).

As a result, both Total Market Capitalisation and Domestic Market Capitalisation closed in green.

The total market capitalisation increased by 1.95 percent, to Sh15.86 trillion, while the domestic equity increased by 0.35 percent to Sh9.45 trillion as prices continue to increase.

The All Shares Index (DSEI) gained by 1.95 percent to close at 1,903.39 points, and Tanzania Shares Index (TSI) increased by 0.35 percent to close at 3,575.87 points.

Banks, Finance and Investment (BI) increased by 1.73 percent, to close at 2,374.94 points, as CRDB and Swiss port counters posted gains. Industrial and Allied (IA) closed at 5,009.02 points, slightly down as JATU price decreased.

Commercial Services (CS) closed at 2,134.28 points which was 0.04 percent up.

During the week, the auction of the 10-year Treasury Bond was undersubscribed by a huge margin, although its yields continued to decrease. “We expect yields to increase in the next week’s auction for Treasury Bills,” Mr Nganya said.