Banks financial outturn pushes up share price
Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) – listed counters in the banking sector dominated in terms of share price gain last week, a market report has shown.
Market analysts have since attributed this to the positive outturns of banks in the past year.
Contents of the MSE weekly update for the week ending April 28 indicate that three counters; National Bank of Malawi (NBM), NBS Bank and Standard Bank, registered the highest share price gains during the review week.
According to the report, in the week under review NBM share price jumped by K1.85 from K260.15 to K262 while NBS rose by K1 from K5 to K6.
Standard Bank share price, on the other hand, jumped by K4.90 from K550.10 to K555 while TNM made a marginal jump by K0.12 from K8.38 to K8.50.
Analysts believe the price gains in the banking sector could be attributed to the banks recent financial statements forecasting a better year ahead.
The analysts, however, cautioned that the share price gain by NBS Bank may not have anything to do with the upcoming rights issue but simply market dynamics.
In an interview yesterday, MSE operations manager Esnat
Chilije said “the movement in NBS Bank is unlikely related to the rights issue as details for the rights issue have not yet been published.”
Speaking in a separate interview, another analyst cautioned that the share price gain in NBS Bank could be a mere speculation.
“People are waking up to the news of several developments happening in the bank. They are unsure of what is going to happen hence to link the price movements in NBS to anything could be untrue and not practical,” said the analyst.
As a result of the share price gains, the benchmark Malawi All Share Index (Masi) gained by 91 points from 15 112.97 points to 15 203.97 points due to an increase in the Domestic Share Index by 72.37 points from 11 863.36 points to 11 935.73 points.
Apart from the four counters, the market report for the week ending April 28 showed that shares market recorded trading activity in National Investment Trust Limited (NITL), Press Corporation Limited (PCL), Sunbird Tourism Limited and Old Mutual Limited.
During the week under review, a total of 2.6 million shares were transacted at a total of K38. 4 million in 23 deals. n
