Stock market bearish in February

By Taonga Sabola:

The Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) recorded a weak performance in February as seven counters registered price losses, a monthly market report released on Friday has shown.

The report indicates that FMB Capital Holdings (FMBCH) shares price fell by 15 percent, TNM (3.846 percent), Press Corporation Limited (3.509 percent), Icon (0.500 percent), Blantyre Hotels Limited (0.154 percent), Nico (0.024 percent), and Old Mutual (0.001).

On the other hand, share price gains were recorded in two counters namely Mpico (0.308 percent) and National Bank of Malawi (0.003 percent).

However, the price gains were not enough to offset the losses, resulting in the indicative Malawi All Share Index (Masi) sinking from 28808.89 points registered in January 2019 to 27687.33 points registered in February 2019, giving a month-on-month return on index of –3.89 percent.

The MSE report shows that the market transacted a total of 165,978,557 shares at a total consideration of K6.98 billion or ($9.561million) in 257 trades.

This is compared to January when the market transacted a total of 46,773,797 shares at a total consideration of K2.357 billion ($3.232 million) in 221 trades.

This reflects a 254.85 percent increase in terms of share volume traded and a 196.25 percent (195.78 percent in United States dollar terms) increase in share value traded.

Of the total shares traded, 152,755,283 NBS Bank shares were traded as a negotiated deal.