Zimbabwe stock exchange: The use of dollars and South African rand in Zimbabwe has become ever more
widespread as the Zimbabwe dollar was rendered worthless
Posted on 02/19/2009 5:52:04 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Three months after the Reserve Bank ordered it to close, the Harare exchange was reopened by the new finance minister Tendai Biti, of the Movement for Democratic Change, who rang the bell to start the day's trading.
Zimbabwe stock exchange: The use of dollars and South African rand in Zimbabwe has become ever more
widespread as the Zimbabwe dollar was rendered worthless
The move symbolises the hope for economic improvement that the country's power-sharing government represents. But the fact that shares are now priced in US currency is equally significant, demonstrating the desperate state of the country's finances.
In terms of the moribund Zimbabwean dollar, which has been rendered worthless by the crash of the economy, Zimbabwean shares have been the best performing in the world in recent years.
Many of them regularly surged 100 per cent a day as investors used them as a hedge against the country's hyperinflation, which reached an estimated 89.7 sextillion per cent before calculations became impossible.
In real terms, shares' performance was much more restrained, as the collapsing currency wiped out the vast majority of the gains.
Nonetheless buying them proved to have been a shrewd investment.
Business was slow with few buyers and sellers in the market but the first trade, of 3,026 shares in Apex, an engineering and stationery firm, went through at 1 cent. When dealing was suspended in November its shares were worth less than 0.1 US cents at unofficial exchange rates.
The use of dollars and South African rand in Zimbabwe has become ever more widespread as Zimbabwe dollar was rendered worthless by President Robert Mugabe's mismanagement, and the process was effectively legalised last month.
A usable currency will be essential to rebuilding the economy, and Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister, said
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I wonder if it’s going to be like Poland when I visited. At different times of day when you visit a $$$ kiosk...the exchange rates vary. Fun, fun, fun. :-/
the country's hyperinflation, which reached an estimated 89.7 sextillion per cent before calculations became impossible.
A sextillion is a million million, 12 zeros. High by even Kenyan standards.
Unfortunately their printing plant is now busy counterfeiting US dollars
When I went back to Canada on Christmas, the US dollar varied as well, but the US dollar was always higher than the Canadian. A far cry from 2 years ago when the Cdn dollar was higher than the US and the hosers were laughing at the US dollar.
Why counterfeit something that is already worthless?
As bad as it is getting here think about how bad it is there!
US dollars are being used now
How do you have a stock market, when there is nothing to trade?
don't trust the euro??? or is it easier to print US$$$...
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