Africa-Press – Malawi. The Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) showed signs of recovery from the devastating impacts of the Covid pandemic in February, when it registered a month-on-month return on index of 2.18 percent.
This was reflected in the upward movement of the Malawi All Share Index (Masi)—the measure of local shares market performance— to 45472.09 points from 44501.63 points registered in January 2022.
The 16-counter bourse started the year slowly as it posted a marginal downward movement of the Masi in January to 44501.63 points, from 45367.68 points in December 2021.
A Monthly Market Performance report published by MSE on Wednesday shows that the local bourse transacted a total of 38,280,230 shares at a total consideration of K1,401,245,776.80 in 267 trades in the month under review.
This reflects a 55.55 percent increase in terms of share volume traded and a 14.26 percent share value traded when compared to the 24,610,034 shares at a total consideration of K1, 226,390,031.46 in 275 trades in January.
“Daily average share trades exhibited similar trends where the market registered an average daily volume of 1,822,868 shares compared to 1,230,502 shares traded in January 2022, reflecting an increase of 48.14 percent.
“The average daily turnover for February 2022 was K66, 725,989.37 compared to K61, 319,501.57 in January 2022, reflecting an increase of 8.82 percent,” the report reads.
MSE Chief Executive Officer John Kamanga said February was preceded by positive trading statements from 10 listed companies who have projected that their profits for the year ended December 31 2021 will be more than 20 percent, hence the positive performance.
“Coming from the challenging period when businesses were negatively affected by Covid, this positive news created excitement and demand for investment in the stock market.
“This is evidenced by market indicators where the market has experienced an increase in return on investment as measured by Masi, as well as increase in both value and volume of shares during the period,” Kamanga said.
In a separate interview, Alliance Stockbrokers Limited Operations Manager Thokozani Saulosi said the rise in Masi is attributed to the rise in demand for the banking counters which have led to a price increase in FDH and NBM.
“The market is usually slow in the first quarter due to different reasons inclusive of waiting for the release of the end-of-year financial results. However, there was a spike in the volume traded for Icon which has increased the traded volume and value for February. We should expect an increase in trades in the coming months mostly as soon as financials are released. Our markets have seasonal effects,” Saulosi said.
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