DSE down despite local investors’ massive sales

Dar es Salaam. The week-on-week turnover at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) dropped by 90 per cent last week despite massive sale of stocks by local investors as they seek funds to inject into other investment avenues, market data show. A total of Sh3.276 billion was realised last week, down from Sh31.988 billion that was registered during the week ending Friday March 17.

Similarly, activity levels dropped by 69 per cent when only 899,305 shares were transacted, down from a total of 2,898,314 shares that exchanged hands during the week ending Friday, March 17.

The week ending Friday March 24 saw local investors actively selling some of their listed stock with the aim of injecting the cash from the proceeds into other investment avenues.

On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, local investors accounted for 100 per cent of all the stocks sold while their foreign counterparts accounted for 76.47 per cent, 50.86 per cent, 90.56 and 89.73 per cent of the registered turnover respectively, suggesting the latter bought much of what the former offered for sale.

On Tuesday, when the market registered a turnover of Sh2.291 billion – largely on account of pre-arranged transactions on the TBL counter - foreign investors dominated in both the selling and buying categories.

During the week, the maker of Kilimanjaro Premium Lager transacted a total of 252,766 shares at a weighted average price of Sh12,000/share to bring in Sh3.033 billion or 92.59 per cent of the week’s turnover.

“To a large extent, this signals that some investors are selling their stock so as to get funds to invest in Vodacom’s Initial Public Offering (IPO). On the other hand, investors believe that the existing price is the right one for the equities. They also anticipate that TBL will announce a good dividend when its financial year officially ends on March 31,” the Zan Securities chief executive officer, MR Raphael Masumbuko last week.