Johannesburg — WITH 34 listings so far this year, worth a combined market capitalisation of more than R74bn, and another 10 in the pipeline, the JSE is enjoying the biggest listings boom since the new millennium and is on its way to recording a bumper year in terms of trade and turnover.

The exchange has also listed new exchange-traded funds and its first retail municipal bond in the form of the Jozi bonds which were launched last week by the City of Johannesburg.

Noah Greenhill, GM of business development at the stock exchange, said in an interview with CNBC yesterday that there were more than 10 new listings in the pipeline before year-end and that of those who had submitted their paperwork, not one had decided to pull out because of recent market turmoil.

Greenhill stuck to his guns when he said that if companies were listing just because of the state of the market at any given time, they were listing for the wrong reasons.

Of the new listings (and some were companies moving boards) 22 went to the AltX board for small to medium companies and 12 listed on the main board.

In a year when the trend towards private equity deals and delistings threatened to strip the boards of significant value, the JSE has been cushioned by the number of companies keen to go public.

Apart from this development, foreign flows have continued with R66,6bn in net purchases recorded by the end of last week -- an improvement of 15,7%.

Of the 34 companies, the average share price appreciation in the year to date came in at 22,7% and the average price to earnings ratio (as recorded for those companies that have been around long enough to be able to calculate a price earnings figure) was 41,53. The average market capitalisation for these firms was R2,2bn.

The top performer in the year to date has been Austro. It listed in February and now has a market capitalisation of almost R1bn. The company distributes woodworking equipment. If an investor had put R100 into the stock upon listing, that person would now be sitting with R260 -- a very decent rate of growth.

But none of this is to say that some of the listings have not been duds.

"The splurge of new listings is a function of a strong economy and cheap financing," said Nigel Suliamen, a portfolio manager at Sanlam Investment Management, "but the flip side is that companies that shouldn't be listed come to market. Some look like they've been put together just for listing."

One company Suliamen mentioned as being a bad buy was Finbond. This is a nationwide property company that arranges financing for home owners. With the local residential property market slowing considerably, now is probably not the time for a company such as Finbond. Its share was the third worst-performing share out of all the new tickers this year.

In the late 1990s, during the tech boom, there were loads of flailing companies taking to the boards. Since then the JSE has introduced new listings requirements and there have been advances in thinking on corporate governance and financial legislation.

Greenhill reckoned that this time around it was much better than the 1990s. Although, as he said, there would always be failures, he hoped that the failures would not be due to mismanagement, fraud or bad corporate governance, but rather due to cyclical changes in the business environment.

Suliamen noted that construction was the flavour of the day but said investors could get caught in the hype.

As the analysis shows, some of the building and construction companies, such as Infrasors, ABE Construction and RBA, are of the worst-performing stocks. But others in this sector, such as SeaKay, Stefannuti & Bressan and Raubex, have enjoyed a dramatic appreciation in their stock prices since listing.

And similarly in the telecommunications space, Foneworx, an equipment supplier, is flying, while Telemaster, which sells phone services, is languishing and has taken the title for the worst-performing stock this year with the price 25% lower than when it listed.