Cafca top industrial performer on ZSE

of the year to trade at US45c, becoming the top performer on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
The group’s opening price of US16c was pushed up by the company’s anticipated increase in production levels.
But there were no major fundamentals driving Cafca’s share movement, besides the huge demands for its products.
Cafca manufactures and supplies an extensive range of cables for the transmission and distribution of energy and information.
Investors are also interested in the counter after company managed to repay all its borrowings in 2010. But with increased activity in the first half of the year, the company is expected to resort to short-term borrowing to finance working capital.
Cafca was followed by tightly-held Radar, which gained 100 percent from an opening price of US20c to US40c.
Clothing retail chain Truworths was in fourth place after gaining US3,30c on the opening price of US3,50c to close the quarter at US6,80c.
Clothing manufacturing and retail firms have benefited as prices of clothes are anticipated to rise, driven by firming international prices of cotton lint which has translated into sustained earnings growth.
Diversified financial counter Trust Holdings completed the top five list after it opened the year at US1,30c and closed at US2,40c, representing a 60 percent jump.
During the period, starafricacorporation led the shakers after losing 57 percent of its value in the first three months of the year from US$7c to US3c.
At the beginning of the year, starafrica was valued at about US$13 million as it traded at US7c.
starafrica was followed by conglomerate TA Holdings and NicozDiamond, which both fell 46 percent from US2,50c to US1,99c and from US2,50 to US1,35c respectively.
Border Timbers, owned 51,2 percent by Radar, slumped from US9c to US5c, representing a 39 percent drop.
During the period under review, General Beltings lost 33 percent of its value after it opened the year at US0,15c before closing the first quarter of the year at US0,10c.
Meanwhile, the ZSE opened the short trading week in the positive, firming 0,26 percent at 136,05 points on the back of positive sentiments as gaining counters outnumbered losers by 13 to two counters.
The industrial index was, however, the only trade statistic in the positive as volume traded, turnover, foreign inflows and outflows and the mining index all pointed southwards.
Trading was generally thin among most counters as volume traded dropped 91,46 percent to 3,7 million share while turnover declined 45,24 percent at US$1,6 million dominated by Delta and Econet, which accounted for a combined 84,50 percent (US$1,330 million) of total turnover.
The day’s performance was buoyed by a 2,99c gain in telecommunications giant Econet, which closed the first day of trading at US500c after a solid set of financials released last week.
Expectation of solid results from beverages group Delta, which is expected to release its March financial numbers soon, have seen its price re-rate to an all-time high of 80,01c as investors reposition themselves.
But the resources sector continues to reel under the negative effect of the indigenisation policy, as the mining index traded in the negative for the umpteenth time after easing 0,28 percent at 204,66 points, dragged by a 5 percent loss in Bindura, which closed at US7,6c.