• Historic turnover denotes BSE’s growing trade activity
• Investors show appetite in local bourse
• Plans to lure foreign investors with ETFs
The Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) has recorded a total trade turnover of P6.1 billion in the first half of 2025.
According to the BSE Market Performance Report for Period 1 January to 31 May 2025, the first half of 2025 saw record amounts of trading activity in the stock markets. The newly released data states that as of June 13, 2025, a record total of P6.1 billion had been traded on the BSE, compared to P2.7 billion in the same period in 2024.
“This represents an increase of 126.0% or P3.4 billion, an indication that the total turnover has more than doubled over this period,” reads the Executive Summary, further stating that equities contributed 67.2% to the total trades, mainly due to increased institutional investor transition related transactions; Bonds contributed 31.0% whereas Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) contributed 1.8% to the total turnover.
According to the BSE, the increase in equities turnover is by far the highest in the history of the Exchange, representing an increase of 643% in comparison to the same period in 2024. States the report: “this means that the turnover in equities has now surpassed the total equities turnover for the year 2024 by P2.5 billion. The changes in the pension fund regulations which came into effect in 2023 continue to inspire most pension funds to evolve and transition their investment strategies and allocation of investment mandates, as well as support the growth of the industry as new asset managers continue to emerge or be incubated.”
Additionally, as per the new data, given that equities have rallied for the past 4 years, institutional portfolio rebalancing is anticipated to continue prevailing thus stimulating liquidity and growth in the market. Moreover, the BSE notes that apart from institutional portfolio transitions, there has been ample investor appetite. To account for this, the BSE notes that this signals a huge appetite by investors to buy shares despite it not being met by the willingness to sell by those holding shares.
However, the BSE suggests that this is not strange to an economy like Botswana where currently, equity real returns are positive because of low inflation thus encouraging investors to hold unto good performing stocks for much longer periods albeit strong demands and opportunities to generate profits through selling.
BSE set to make Botswana Africa’s capital hub
The BSE solid performance in recent memory aligns with its strategic focus of positioning Botswana as Africa’s leading capital hub. As Africa’s capital hub, Botswana will be at the epicentre of capital investment characterised by thriving businesses. In addition,will in part be driven by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and massive infrastructure development.
Consequently, highlighting alignment with this dream to be Africa’s capital hub, the BSE data points to the fact that the ETFs market has similarly experienced increased inflows as over P110 million has been invested in ETFs thus far. “The BSE is currently evaluating listings applications of three new ETFs, which, after approval and subsequent listing will take the number of listed ETFs to 7. These three new ETFs are particularly important and exciting because they will offer local investors exposure to foreign markets and foreign companies that are not easy to invest in if you go at them alone.
“Being ETFs, investors will be able to buy these as a single instrument on the BSE. One ETF would give exposure to the top 500 companies publicly listed and traded in the USA. The second one will give exposure to more than 1,300 leading companies across 23 Developed Markets countries such as USA, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland. The third one would give exposure to more than 1,200 leading companies in 24 Emerging Markets, which include countries such as India, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. All the 3 are tracking the MSCI indices for these distinct markets. It is worth mentioning that 7 other ETFs have been granted local asset status, and these are in the process of being submitted for approval to list on the BSE. The listing of these international ETFs will true cement the BSE position as one of the leading providers of diversified publicly traded investment instruments in Sub-Sahara Africa, a critical disposition as we strive to become a premier capital hub in Africa.”
