There are rallies that take place with great noise, driven by the rush of savers and saturated trading rooms. The Tunisian market rally, by contrast, follows an opposite logic.
The market capitalization reached 45.818 billion dinars, up 32.17% year over year, and yet the market has never seemed so sparsely attended. The question facing investors is no longer whether the stock market is rising, but who is rising with it.
A cautious ascent
The October paradox hinges on a comparison. The month counted 21 trading sessions versus 13 in September, and the capital traded on the market nevertheless progressed only modestly.
Reported per session, the daily average collapsed by 33.67%, to 7.4 million dinars. In other words, the calendar drove the volume, not appetite. An index that gains 38.46% over twelve months in a market so illiquid speaks less of collective enthusiasm than of the scarcity of sellers.
This scarcity is also evident in the trajectory of the TUNINDEX. It gained 1.29% in October, but after a month of methodical decline, interrupted only by a final sharp rebound. It remains nearly 14% below its mid-July peak. The yearly rise is therefore real, but it has already faltered. The market is not climbing anymore; it is consolidating, and the consolidation is taking place in silence.
When a single month weighs more than the others
The year-to-date total is dizzying: nearly 2.98 billion dinars traded on equity, against 1.63 billion a year earlier. But this performance masks a highly uneven geography. April alone absorbed more than a quarter of the year’s flows, driven by block operations outside the central order book.
This segment still accounts for 11.46% of October’s volume. Tunisian liquidity remains thus a matter of large maneuvers more than of continuous flows, which makes the market sensitive to the agenda of a few institutional players.
The banks, engine and hostage of the market
