Stock exchange leaps 830pc as investors snap up TBL shares

Dar es Salaam. The total turnover at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) advanced by a cool 829 per cent last week as investors snapped up Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) shares in anticipation that its prices will soon go up.

The week-on-week turnover rose to Sh16.3 billion during the week ending September 23 – a massive leap from Sh1.754 billion registered during the week ending September 16, market data shows. TBL transacted a total of 1,176,378 shares at prices that ranged between Sh12,800 and Sh12,900 to contribute a cool Sh15.1 billion or 92.6 per cent of the week’s turnover.

“Investors are optimistic that the existing price per share of TBL is below what the beer making firm’s share deserves…they are bullish about investing in the firm’s shares in anticipation that they will soon sell the same on better prices and earn good profits,” the Zan Securities chief executive officer, Mr Raphael Masumbuko, told The Citizen.

The Safari Lager maker has seen its share fetching between Sh12,670 and Sh12,900 for the past two weeks as the DSE - just like other bourses outside the country – react to global and local economic happenings during the past few months.

Throughout July, the TBL share exchanged hands at prices that ranged between Sh13,740 and Sh13,880 but it started losing in August when it closed the month at Sh12,440.

It all started early this year when China — which is the world’s second largest economy after the US — shook the world when concerns about its shaky transition from an export-fuelled industrial nation to a more mature developed economy rattled global financial markets.

Analysts say China’s economy might not have hit its lower 7 per cent target for 2015 and President Xi Jinping said Beijing was lowering the goal going forward, aiming for 6.5 per cent annual growth from 2016 to 2020.

But before the dust had settled, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union during the June 24, 2016 Brexit vote, sending global markets to further shocks.

Locally, the October 2015 general election brought the new administration into power and investors might still be uncertain regarding the policies that the government intends to take.