Botswana Stock Exchange Limited (BSEL) Domestic Company Index (DCI) suffered a 6.7 percent depreciation over the first nine months of the year.
According to the BSEL Market Performance Report, the fall comes hot on the heels of a 5 percent decline recorded in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, Foreign Company Index (FCI) fared slightly better, depreciating by 1.0 percent from January to September. Again this comes after a disappointing 2019, where FCI dropped by 0.4 percent in the first three-quarters of the year.
In terms of equity turnover, by October, the BSEL had recorded P537 million from traded volumes of 289.7 million shares.
Broken down on a quarterly basis, the first quarter of the year experienced a marginally higher turnover of P185 million from 87.1 million traded shares. This was followed by the second and third quarters, with equity turnover levels of P178.7 million and P173.3 million respectively.
This works out at less than half of the P1.2 billion equity turnover – from 387.5 million shares traded – registered in the corresponding 2019 period
Since the year began to date, the month of March recorded the highest equity turnover of P117.7 million from trading of 50.9 million shares followed by June with P89.9 million from 33.9 million shares.
August had the most traded number of shares at 99.4 million, generating the third-highest monthly turnover of P77.9 million.
During the period under review, it was noted that equity turnover was less concentrated on a few counters and widely spread among a larger number of companies compared to the corresponding periods of the previous three years.
This is supported by the fact that the top three traded companies accounted for 49 percent or P265.8 million of the total equity turnover, compared to the previous corresponding period, where the top three accounted for 53 percent of total equity turnover.
The most-traded companies were Letshego, which accounted for P123.3 million, First National Bank Botswana (FNBB) at P73.4 million and Sechaba Brewery Holdings Limited (SBHL) at P69.1 million.
It was a difficult period for the local bourse as during the nine months of the year, out of the 32 listed companies, 24 of them experienced a decline in share price while only two saw their share prices go up and six remained unchanged.
The companies that experienced share price increases were Sefalana and Letlole, which gained 3.7 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.
The three companies to experience the greatest decline in share price were Lucara, Tlou and Minergy, which dropped by 61.5 percent, 60 percent, and 24.5 percent respectively.