BSE extends losses on tight liquidity
Staff Writer | Tuesday June 6, 2017 18:00
Since the beginning of the year, the stock market’s performance, as measured by the Domestic Companies Index (DCI), has lost 0.58% after the index finished last week 0.03% softer dragged by a loss in heavy weight, Letshego.
“Tight liquidity conditions prevailed in the market with thin trades across the board during the greater part of the week. A small relief came on Friday after PrimeTime, Choppies and BIHL traded P10.7 million worth of shares between them,” said analysts at Motswedi Securities.
PrimeTime, which is going through a rights issue, traded some rights worth P1.4 million on Friday, pushing the weekly trades to 33 million shares worth P16.4 million. This was down from 6.9 million shares worth P82.6 million which traded the previous week.
Turnstar was top of the gainers up 0.3% to close at 322 thebe. The property giant continues to break new ground after it became the first listed property stock to acquire a property in Dubai.
“This is a big milestone for the property giant as this will give it further diversification in terms of geographic location as well as a currency hedge. This property is expected to give a yield of approximately 10% per annum,” said Motswedi Securities.
Wilderness Holdings, a luxury safari operator with presence in eight countries also gained 0.2% to close at 523 thebe a week after releasing a fair set of results for the year ended February 28 2017. Revenue grew strongly by 18% to P1.1 billion, while operating profit grew by just five percent to P208 million, weighed by foreign exchange losses that amounted to P11.3 million from gains of P26 million during the previous year.
Profit before tax fell 16% to P101 million due to increases in finance cost and unrealised foreign exchange loss on loans.
On the downside, Botswana Diamonds (BOD) was the biggest loser, down 9.5% to close at 19 thebe after trading 40,000 shares worth P7,600. BOD is a diamond exploration and project development company that holds exploration licences in Botswana. Other losses were in Lucara and Letshego, which lost one thebe to 226 thebe.