Dar Es Salaam — The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) has started the year 2010 with low trading activity, with its share index having fallen to the lowest level in about fifteen months.

The DSE report shows that the DSE All Shares Index (DSEI) closed at 1190.97 points, the lowest in fifteen months, last week, from 1192.37 points recorded during the last day of the second quarter of the current financial year ended in December 2009.

The Tanzania Share Index (TSI) which determines the performance of the locally listed companies also closed at 935.43 points by early this week from 938.32 points recorded during the end of last year.

Brokers say the market will perform poorly this month as most of the potential investors, especially individuals are faced with a lot of financial obligations.

The DSE chief executive, Mr. Jonathan Njau described the year 2009 as neither bad nor good to the market, as the general overview showing that the market lacked liquidity.

As this is the third quarter of the bourse's financial year, dealers say things are worse than the second quarter ended in December last year.

Dealers say the fall of the DSE indices caused by lower trading of shares and slight fall of share prices among listed companies.

"Most of the people want to sell their shares but as far as there are few buyers prices tend to follow the bidders expectation," said a stock dealer.

However, the market situation is currently characterized with the high supply of shares while the demand of so low, though bidders tend to be selective to listed companies.

Dealers say the Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) shares are currently most demanded in the market, but those who hold them do not want to sell them. Others were Twiga and Simba and Tanzania Breweries Limited.

However, the DSE reports show that other companies such as CRDB, DCB and NMB are currently having the highest offers as most of the people who joined the companies during the Initial Public Offers tend to exist.

The cross listed companies including JHL, KA, EABL and KCB have been inactive during the year, as dealers say their share prices are so high to the small market like Tanzania.