Over the two weeks starting October 8, the local bourse drastically re-adjusted to the developments in the informal market where exchange rates for bond notes and real time gross settlement (RTGS) against major currencies have surged to levels as high as 400 percent.
The stock market closed on Thursday with a market capitation of $19,9 billion after gaining significantly from a capitalisation of $13,6 billion at opening of trading on Monday, the previous week.
Econet and Delta absorbed most of the action with the heavy weights accounting for most of the market's gains.
Econet, which became the most valuable counter on the market after the local bourse's decision to include unquoted shares in value calculation at the end of July, closed trading on Thursday last week with a valuation of $6,5 billion after opening at $3,9 billion on Monday, the previous week.
Meanwhile, Delta picked up $1,6 billion over the two weeks to close on Thursday at $4,5 billion.
Analysts said on a purely intrinsic value basis the shares prices were supposed to be declining as the economy and businesses has been subdued.
But, the stock market has become a safe haven for investors and other economic players when the local currency, which many are calling RTGS dollars, began to lose value at a faster pace against the real US dollars.
Exchange rates in the informal market exploded after the central bank directed all banks to effectively operationalise the ring-fencing policy on Nostro foreign currency accounts it introduced in February, by separating foreign currency accounts (FCAs) into two categories, namely Nostro FCAs and RTGS FCAs.
The move provoked fears surrounding RTGS deposit even though the government maintains that it is committed to preserve the value of these balances on a rate of one to one with the US dollar.
The market reached its highest ever capitalisation level last week when it breached the $23,3 billion mark in the mid-week. Econet recorded the market's highest ever valuation of 7,6 billion while Delta peaked at $5,5 billion.
At of close of trading on Thursday, the two heavy weights accounted for more than half of the market's total valuation with a combined market capitalisation of $11 billion.
Econet and Delta's fairytale comes hardly a few days after the local bourse lost $4 billion in value after parallel market rates for bond notes and real time gross settlement rates against major currencies deteriorated.
The informal exchange for the surrogate currency and transferable deposits bond, which had surged to levels as high as 400 percent mid last week.
