LuSE records K98bn market capitalisation

MARKET capitalisation on the Lusaka Securities Exchange (LuSE) for the first quarter of this year stood at K97.7 billion, signifying its positive performance.

Official statistics showed that the market capitalisation was up by 10.2 percent.

The performance was attributed to positive market performance as well as the recent completed assets acquisition under Real Estate Investments Zambia Plc (REIZ), according to the LuSE Chief Executive Officer, Mr Nicholas Kabaso.

“Annual growth in market capitalisation was 30.26 percent. Indicatively, the market capitalisation to the gross domestic product (GDP) is hovering around 18 percent,” Mr Kabaso said at the LuSE quarterly media briefing on Thursday in Lusaka.

On the outlook, Mr Kabaso said it was expected to remain positive over the remainder of the year.

This, he explained, was premised on improving economic fundamentals such as current debt restructuring and re-operationalisation of key mines.

Mr Kabaso also mentioned that discussions had advanced to launch the first commodity back exchange traded fund (ETF) which is expected to be launched in 2024.

On bond performance, Mr Kabaso said the total face value of Government bonds traded on the secondary market amounted to K7.54 billion.

This represented a 30 percent decline from K10.83 billion recorded in the same quarter of 2023.

“A total of 682 trades in government bonds took place while no trading activity was recorded under corporate bonds,” he said.

During the period under review, the LuSE All-Share Index, closed at 17.3 percent making it the second –best performing quarter since 2000.

Mr Kabaso also said the index broke the 9,000,10,000and 12,000-point barriers all within the space of 12 months.

Meanwhile, during the period under review ,91.5 percent of share turnover was attributed to foreign institutional investors and 46 percent to local institutional investors.

This brought the total institutional investor contribution to 95.6 percent.

“Foreign retail investors contributed the lowest towards turnover for the quarter at 0.04 percentage point.

“Local retail investors also contributed 3.8 percent of the total turnover for the quarter, which brings the total retail investors contribution to 3.84 percent,” Mr Kabaso said.