Banks Dominate Trading At Dar Es Salaam Bourse

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

Abduel Elinaza

21 July 2011

BANKS dominated trading at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) with over 99.1 per cent of total shares exchanging hands last week as investors largely shunned offers from the manufacturing and service sectors.

Traded shares shot to 2,783,232 compared with 1,978,446 shares sold the previous week, according to the Weekly Market Commentary, a review of trading at the bourse issued by private broking firm, Tanzania Securities. The shares were sold for 591.6m/-, the statement added.

“We anticipate reduced activity on most counters as the market continues with its dependence on foreign investors whose activity is limited by the country’s capital account limitations on foreign investors,” the Commentary said on Tuesday.

A few days ago, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) issued a report that the industry had passed a stress test conducted between mid-last year and March this year, meaning the banks were solid in terms of capital exposure.

According to regulations, almost all listed manufacturing and service firms have met the maximum 60 per cent foreign ownership ceiling, thus limiting further liquidity injection into their operations by outside investors.

The three listed banks namely, CRDB, National Microfinance (NMB) and Dar es Salaam Community (DCB) are under the limit.

In the week under review, CRDB dominated the trading with a total of 2,618,517 shares sold with a turnover of 471.3m/- . The bank had in the previous week sold a total of 1,511,450 shares that added Shs 278.2m/- to its capital.

“Foreign inventors accounted for 42 per cent of the CRDB counter’s activity over the week,” the Commentary further said. The bank’s shares sold for Tsh 200/- each.

Strong support for DCB saw the counter increase further to close the week at Shs 510/- a share. However, week-on-week activity saw the counter edge down to a volume of 51,400 shares from 129,752 shares traded at the counter last week, the Commentary said.

Industries registered dismal performance during the week, edging up only to 22,081 shares from 10,552 shares traded the week before. The sector’s turnover also increased to 47m/- from 20.7m/- last week.

The commercial sector transacted a volume of 1,848 shares at the Swissport counter for Shs 640/- each. Swissport, an airport handling Services Company, is the only listed firm under the category.

AllAfrica – All the Time