The year just ended 2020 was horrible year in many aspects—millions of lives lost, millions infected, many businesses in the grave yard and the few which survived still struggling to get back on feet. However there are a few exceptions like local manufacturers who enjoyed brisk business as borders were closed leading to focus and support of locally manufactured products!
For our forum, we can safely say this is the year members came to the party!
We witnessed a great spirit of support with well attended meetings and events. All the behind the scenes hard work finally paid off in 2020 with the forum also witnessing rapid growth from 50,000 members in January 2020 to 92,000 in December 2020.
The number of views for our Facebook Forum also shot up from a monthly 400k to end at 700k providing a rich market place for entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe.
This is also the year Crowdfunding peaked in Zimbabwe with a record 6 companies registered (Agri-volution, Nutricio, Big Ideas Galore, Patsime, Global Runners and Ziglobal Runner). We are looking at adding a record 10 more companies in 2021 starting with a Stock Exchange Consortium.
The performance record of the ZSE in 2020 is featured below:
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2019 Closing Value=US$1.8 Billion
2020 Closing Value =US$3.8 Billion
Net gain +115%
Using Parallel Market Rates
2019 value $1.17 Billion
2020 value $2.7 Billion
Net gain +130%
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Stock Exchange Investment literacy is very low in the country leading to many easily falling prey to ponzi schemes. We witnessed the collapse of many ponzi schemes in 2020 which is really regrettable. A lot of our members also lost out despite an avalanche of advice we posted interminably.
So in 2021 we are looking at pooling resources into a trust and then exploring opportunities on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and the Victoria Falls Stock Exchanges. This is a trial run and only for those who are patient enough to invest small amounts—watch closely performance and make decisions to withdraw, remain or invest more.
The forum will engage a reputable stock broker who will assist with all logistics so that we get professional advice. We sold the idea to the forum yesterday (last year) and there has been an overwhelming response—we would like to thank everyone for the interest and input.
To those with little or no financial knowledge on stock exchange investment—this is your perfect learning platform and the knowledge will assist you to invest on your own.
We are going to form the Whatsapp group on the 15th of January 2021 and we will widely share the group links on the forum for those interested in the initiative.
So mark 15 January 2021 on your calendar.
