The stock market maintained a positive  trajectory into the holiday shortened week as the mainstream index added 0.28% to close at 211.19. The bourse is on course to beat an all-time high of 232.83 touched in August 2017. Increased currency risks after the introduction of the bond notes and political uncertainty ahead of the elections has resulted in risk aversion and a scrambling into real assets notably in equities.

The mining index was however stable at 74.04 with none of the counters exchanging hands. A total of 14 counters participated in today’s session and from that sum half of the stocks came out in the positive while only 3 stocks ended up in the negative territory, resulting in a positive market breadth.

Leading the topside was packaging concern, Nampak which put on 11.43% to close at 7.80c. Trailing was milk producer Dairibord  which added 6.67% to close at 8c after posting an improved set of interims. Dairibord remained in a net loss position although it made significant strides in boosting income through volumes and high margin products.

ZB Financial Holdings which reported improved earnings for the half year period gained 3.13% today to close the session at 16.50c per share.

Axia rose by 2.36% to close at 13c while retail stock OK Zim capped the upside on notching 2.34% to close at 11.36c per share.

Meikles was the worst performer easing by 8.86% to close the session at 20.05c.  Cement producer PPC fell by 8.45% to close at 65c while CFI shed 2.05% to close at 61c per share. This is the first time the stock has recorded a decline in 5 months. Over the past 1 month the counter has added over 150% and is up by over 200 year to date.

Turnover came in at $0.2 million which was a 49% dearth from the prior session, a typical trend in post-holiday trades. Among the top value traded stocks were Seedco trailed by NMB, Dairibord, Nampak and Econet in that respective order. Volume traded reached 1.7 million shares.