Selling pressure eases on Zim stocks as Mnangagwa set to become president

Harare - Selling pressure on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange eased on Wednesday amid news that Emmerson Mnangagwa is set to be sworn in as the country's president on Friday.

Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon that the ruling Zanu-PF had informed him it has nominated Mnangagwa, the former vice president, to fill the vacancy of the office of president, replacing the 93-year-old former President Robert Mugabe who resigned late on Tuesday afternoon.

By the close of trading the ZSE’s main Industrials Index was down 5.07% to 329.63. Overall market capitalisation stood at $9.4bn down 39.3% from its all-time high of more than $15bn.

The decline is lower than the 3-day average decline of more than 10% that came after investors, mostly speculators, sold of shares following the intervention by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to stop what it called "criminal elements" around Mugabe.

The action, however, culminated in Mugabe relinquishing his post after citizens took to the streets calling for his resignation. His own Zanu-PF party also turned on him and was in the process of impeaching him before he resigned.

Some of the stocks that closed in red include dual-listed PPC [JSE:PPC] and Old Mutual [JSE:OML] both coming off by more than 19% to close at $1.76 and $5.93 per share respectively.

The two counters have since come off from highs of $3.46 and $14.20 respectively versus JSE and LSE average prices of $2.67 for Old Mutual.

Turnover for the day was above average at $12.4m.

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