BSE Q1 turnover scorecard

Tsheole pins recovery hope on vaccination

• Equity turnover declines to P177.9 million
• COVID-19 pandemic hitting hard on the bourse
• Letshego, PrimeTime, Stanchart most traded stocks

BAKANG TIRO

editors@thepatriot.co.bw

Local bourse, Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), has revealed in its market performance report covering January 2021 to end of April 2021 that a total equity turnover of P177.9 million was recorded from traded volumes of 201.2 million shares compared to P239.2 million recorded in 2020.

On a month to month basis, the BSE says April experienced the highest turnover followed by March.

“The top 3 traded companies during the period under review were Letshego Holdings (P45.2 Million), Prime Time Property (P19.1 Million) and Standard Chartered Bank (P15.5 Million). The total turnover from these 3 companies accounted for 44.9% of a total equity turnover, with the leading counter Letshego Holdings accounting for 25.4% of total equity turnover,” said the BSE.

In an interview on Friday the CEO of BSE Thapelo Tsheole said the Covid-19 pandemic had a big negative impact on the equity turnover as majority of investors are very cautious of the pandemic.

He said investors are reluctant to sell shares because of uncertainty on the prices.

“The pandemic had a negative effect on the local markets. No listed investor is willing to sell their shares. Everyone is looking at the future hoping for the recovery in the economy. The level of equity turnover was negatively impacted by the slow economic activity. We are hoping for the best,’’ he stressed.

However, they expect levels of turnover to increase in a coming weeks.

“Botswana domestic markets were roughly impacted at the same level like others in the region. A lot of countries’ recovery is based on robust vaccination rollout. But if we are left behind in terms of vaccination other countries are going to recover based on that. Recovery of markets turnover is very slow at the moment. We are pinning our recovery on effective vaccine rollout,” he said.

In comparison, to the same period in 2020, the top 3 traded companies accounted for 56.6% of total equity turnover with leading counter FNB accounting for 20.1% (P48.1 Million) of total equity turnover.

Tsheole noted that of the 30 listed companies, 12 depreciated in share price, eight appreciated in share price while 10 experienced no share price change.

The top gainer was Tlou Energy with a 51.5% growth in share price, followed by both Lucara Diamond and Seed Co. with gains of 37.0% and 35.1% respectively.

Turnstar Holdings experienced the biggest decline in the share price of 20.8% followed by Sechaba Brewery Holdings and Absa Bank of Botswana with the declines of 19.6% and 18.2% respectively. Regarding Investor Contribution to Equity Turnover, BSE indicated that local companies did well.

“Six local companies contributed 40.1% to total equity turnover or P45.6 million in the monetary terms while local individuals contributed 7.0% during the year to 31 March or P8.0 Million in monetary terms. Foreign companies contributed 39.9% or P45.4 Million to total equity turnover,” avowed BSE.

Foreign individuals and the brokers contributed 12.8% (P14.6 Million) and 0.1% (P0.1 Million) to equity turnover respectively and total of P 113 727 307,71 was made from all the investors combined.