Harare — INDUSTRIALS touched record highs at 972 144.83 points on Thursday before closing the week softer at 962 391.52 points on profit taking.

Minings remained steady with the index finishing the period a minimal 0,10 percent weaker at 538 460.06 points.

Stronger activity reported in heavyweight counters as well export-centred stocks helped push industrials higher as booming global resource prices stabilised mining shares.

Analysts predict the Reserve Bank's half-yearly policy review statement expected this week will likely have a positive effect on export shares that will seemingly be buoyed by a relaxed exchange rate.

Financial stocks were still susceptible to intermittent policy shocks, and it would not be shocking to see similar shocks in the anticipated policy report, analysts said.

In the medium term, the broader stock market outlook remained biased towards the upside, however, as interest rates were likely to remain low with inflation flying even higher.

Among the top five movers were Nicoz, an insurance provider, and the currency hedge insurer, Old Mutual, going up by 50 percent and 48 percent to close the week at $9 and $17 000 respectively.

The major heavyweight drivers of the industrial index in the week under review were Old Mutual, PPC, Tanganda, DZHL and Delta.

A total of 53 counters gained in the period being reported.

There were 14 losses last week.

Industrial giant Steelnet was down 25 percent at $15, followed by property company Dawn that went down 18 percent.

Other counters that were within the top five losers included Kingdom, CFX and ART ZDR that were down 15 percent, 13 percent and 11 percent at

$93, $4 and $170, respectively.

Heavyweight counters that went down included Econet, BAT, RioZim and CBZ after a very good rally before profit takers came in.

On the money market. the easier liquidity conditions obtaining in the

week have seen an increase in take-up for the Treasury bills to avoid money being taken at 0 percent for between 90-270 days.

Although the three-year bond has a higher yield of 350 percent during the first year, investors prefer the relatively shorter-dated one-year Treasury bill, which is yielding at 340 percent.

This is because investors are not sure what would happen to alternative investments in 2008 as they may turn out higher than the 270 percent on the three-year bond.

This means that investors would rather go for the one-year Treasury bill instead of the three-year bond when hard-pressed to place funds so as to avoid the 0 percent yielding asset.