At least they're not as bad as Bear Stearns

Update: The Old Mutual implied exchange rate today is Z$78 billion to 1 USD. So you can chop all of the values listed below in half. Wow.

As a followup to this morning’s wrap of the Zimbabwean currency market: it’s fascinating to read the business pages of the Zimbabwean papers and translate the numbers into USD.

Here’s the stock market wrap from Pravda’s Zimbabwe edition this morning. (If you’d like to read a Zimbabwean newspaper that isn’t run by Mugabe’s propagandists, the Financial Gazette is apparently quite good.)

Read that stock market wrap first, before you look below.

Now, with USD amounts, at $35 billion ZWD = $1 USD:

_ZIMBABWE Stock Exchange shares rallied across the board at the start of the week with the minings roaring past the _285_ level while the industrials going past _200_ points. […]

Delta gained **$1** to **$288** taking its market capitalisation to **$300,000**, KMAL rose **$0.34** to **$0.91** and Old Mutual put on **$1** or 100 percent to **$2.00**. […]_

(Ed note: that market cap number can’t be right. If it is, I’m gonna fly over there and buy that Delta company right now… but I can’t pull up the ZSE website to check it.)

_Furniture retailer Pelhams was buyers only at _0.046 cents_ after its March full year results where revenue amounted to **$177** and earnings per share at _four one-millionths of a cent_. The group said that last year’s price blitz had significantly affected volumes.

TSL rose _1.4 cents_ to _7.1 cents_ after its interims last week. The group reported a revenue growth of 211 189 percent to **$4,814** from the same period last year. […]

Phoenix was buyers only at _2 cents_ in the wake of its half year results where the group reported a pre-tax figure of **$2,371** resulting in profits attributable to shareholders of **$1,571**. […]

NicozDiamond added _0.3 cents_ to _40 cents_ after its trading update for the year to May showed Gross Premium Written at **$5,171**._

Zimbabwe: the only country in the world where an insurance company can write $5,000 worth of business year-to-date and still make money.