After coming through the ‘Covid years’ relatively unscathed, Botswana Stock Exchange Limited (BSE) has endured a slow but steady start to 2023.
According to the latest BSEL Market Performance Report for the first quarter of the year, trading activity amounted to P273.5 million.
This is way down from the P407.8 million traded over the same three-month period in 2022, but up significantly from the P113.7 and P185 traded the years before.
Explaining the reason for this, BSEL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Thapelo Tsheole told Voice Money, “There was a big trade early in the year in 2022 whereas in 2023 we have not yet had such a big trade. Instead, this year turnover levels have been very steady with no positive anomalies. A big trade is usually a one-off trade of more than P100 million, and we are yet to experience such this year although a few are in the pipeline judging from our surveillance of the market.”
Highlighting some of the biggest trades recorded in recent years, Tsheole mentioned a massive P1.1 billion deal in 2021, P149.8 million in 2019, P458.6 million for 2018 and P484.6 and P494.3 million in 2017 and 2016 respectively. These were recorded at random quarters.
Meanwhile, of the 31 BSE-listed companies, three depreciated in share price, 16 appreciated while 12 experienced no share price change.
The top three gainers are CA Sales with a 19.7 percent growth in share price, followed by Chobe and Cresta with gains of 17.2 percent and 15.8 percent respectively.
Companies that experienced no share price change include: Choppies, Far Property Company, Minergy, Olympia, Seed Co, Anglo American, Investec, Shumba Energy, Tlou Energy, Botswana Diamonds, Lucara Diamond and BBS Bank.