African Thoughts: April 04, 2016

Nigeria:

The ASI fell by 1.52% last week taking the YTD loss now to 10.95% while volumes remain woefully inadequate. Both the banks (-7.98%) and the Consumers (-4.14%) got an absolute hammering as the lack of demand continues to hurt. The banks were punished mostly thanks to GTB (-10.69%, N14.29) and Zenith Bank (-15.54%, N10.98) while the consumers were hammered by NB (-9.6%, N106.39). However, as noted, market volumes remain woefully dire.

Kenya:

The NSE 20 closed marginally lower by 10bps and is now down just 1.1% for the year thus far. We also saw a rather chunky fall in market turnover while foreigners remain rather dominant. As has been the case for a good few weeks now we saw the major action going through in Safcom. The telco ended the week at KES16.83 (-30bps). The second most active stock was Bamburi (+2.6%, KES194) thanks to a couple of crosses. The banks were both a bit soft with Equity Bank falling by 1.8% to KES40.00 while KNCB closed at KES41.75 (-60bps).

Zimbabwe:

The Industrials slipped by 39bps last week thereby extending the YTD loss to 14.85% while volumes remain low. Somewhat worryingly, the indigenization issue reared its ugly head again which is always a threat to the market. Among the large cap names we saw a fall in Natfoods (-4.55%, 210c albeit on scraps) while Econet rose by 3.48% to 25c and Innscor gained 79bps at 64c.

Mauritius:

The Semdex gained 40bps while the Sem-10 gained 10bps last week. This was mostly due to the banks as we saw MCBG close up 10bps at Rs206.50 while SBMH rose by 1.5% to Rs0.67.

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