Activity at the Dar es Salaam stock market remained fairly stable following the formal announcement of President John Magufuli's death. Most listed firms remained resilient with no immediate dipping of share prices.

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) closed business on Thursday, with a total of Tsh2.6 billion ($1.13 million) from 5,002,830 shares traded in 20 deals, and Tsh6.88 billion ($2.95 million) from bond traded in six deals.

This is five times higher than the total turnover of Tsh371.74 million ($159,553) on Wednesday before the announcement of the president’s death, and was also the highest total turnover over the past two weeks when there was increasing speculation surrounding his whereabouts and health.

According to the DSE's Thursday report, on the Block Trade Pre-arranged Market board the CRDB counter traded a block of 4,000,000 shares while NMB counter traded a block of 1,000,000 shares.

In the Normal Board, CRDB counter had 1,100 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh230 ($0.09) per share in two deals. The DSE counter had 120 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh1,100 ($0.47) per share in one deal.

JATU counter, despite share price plunging by two percent, had 780 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh1,900 ($0.81) per share in six deals.

The NMB counter on the other hand, had 80 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh2,240 ($0.96) per share in 2 deals. SWIS counter had 80 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh1,180 ($0.50) per share in 1 deal.

Report shows TBL counter had 10 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh10,400 ($4.46) per share in 1 deal while TCCL counter had 60 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh400 ($0.17) per share in 3 deals.

More shares were traded at the TPCC and Vodacom counters with 540 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh2,700 ($1.15) per share and 60 shares traded at weighted average price of Tsh740 ($0.31) per share in 1 deal, respectively.

Local investors still had appetite for government bonds, where the Government Bonds Board, a 10-year bond with a coupon rate of 11.44 percent and a face value of Tsh6.48 billion ($2.78 million) was traded at prices of 102.68 percent, 103.94 percent and 112.52 percent in 3 deals.

A 20-year bond with a coupon rate of 15.49 percent and a face value of Tsh279.587 trillion ($0.12 b) was traded at prices of 105.13 percent, 105.58 percent and 107.40 percent in 3 deals

“There was no activity in the Corporate Bonds segment,” partly read the DSE report on Thursday.

Despite the huge increase of DSE total turnover, at least three firms, including two cross-listed firms at the DSE, recorded a drop on Friday morning.

Share prices of East African Breweries Ltd (EABL), Nation Media Group and local firm JATU recorded a sharp decrease early Friday.

EABL saw its share price drop by 1.12 per cent to Tsh3,540 ($ 1.51) from Tsh3,580 ($1.53) per one share while Nation Media Group, which owns Daily Nation, The EastAfrican, Business Daily newspapers and part of Mwananchi Communication (MCL), had its share fall by 3.49 per cent to Tsh415 ($0.17) from Tsh430 ($0.18).

JATU share price recorded a drop by 2.06 per cent to Tshs1,900 ($0.81) from Tsh1,940 ($0.83).

The share prices for the remaining 26 both local and cross-listed firms remained unchanged.

A year ago, most cross-listed companies recorded a decline in share prices following the outbreak of the novel virus, leading to a decline in Market capitalization by Tsh2.5 trillion ($1.073 billion) in the three months to March 31, 2020.

Up to Friday morning, Market Capitalization at the DSE amounted to Tsh15.563 trillion ($6.676 billion), a Tsh1.05 billion ($450,665) increase from Tsh14.509 trillion ($ 6.227 billion) achieved on March, 31, 2020.