Economics & Market Intelligence

IN last week’s article, I looked at the circumstances under which a contract might be deemed voidable. In this week’s article, I continue that conversation and expand it by dealing with how you can prove the existence and terms of a verbal contract. Thirdly, a contract can be voided on the basis of mistake. A mistake…

A recent article in The Economist cites that Microsoft will pay US$69 billion in cash for the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a video-game developer in what represents a huge bet on the future of entertainment. It should be highlighted that this is the biggest acquisition ever made in the video-game industry. In addition, it is…

THE year 2021 was another exciting year for investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) as most made some good returns. The way to make money on our markets has indeed been to bet on recovering and well-managed businesses. Other moves such as “following big and smart money” (copy-cat strategy) have also paid off. We…

THE state of economies is usually measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or other metrics of economic flows. By definition, GDP is the standard measure of the value added, created through the production of goods and services in a country during a certain period. As such, it also measures the income earned from that…

ONE interesting discussion topic at the Zimbabwe Association of Pension Funds (ZAPF) Conference held last month was on the implications of poor macro-economic performance on the pensions industry in Zimbabwe. The paper was presented by Prosper Chitambara, a development economist with the Labour and Economic Research Institute of Zimbabwe. The key take-away was that the…

ONE important topic of discussion at the 2021 OESAI Conference had to do with capacity building and skills development in the insurance sector. The paper was presented by Saul Sseremba, CEO of the Insurance Training College (Uganda). Generally, there was consensus among participants that globalisation has disrupted knowledge creation and that there is no monopoly…

THERE has been several initiatives on the local capital markets aimed at increasing retail investor participation. There has been a lot of interest, particularly in new products such as Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). For example, the Old Mutual ZSE Top 10 Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) was launched in January 2021, and has helped diversify product…

ONE of the discussion topics at the 43rd Organisation of Eastern and Southern Africa Insurers (OESAI) conference that was held from August 21-25, 2021 in Mombasa, Kenya was titled, “Leveraging Big Data and Data Sharing: Managing and Enhancing Stakeholder experiences in Insurance markets”. The paper was presented by Tendai Karonga, Insurance Council of Zimbabwe (ICZ)…

THERE has indeed been several positive economic news flows in Zimbabwe, with the government revising the 2021 economic growth forecast from 7,4 percent to 7,8 percent, mainly driven by the agricultural sector, which is expected to grow by 34 percent. The IMF is projecting a six percent growth rate for the economy. In addition, the…