African Thoughts: August 10, 2015


Nigeria:

The ASI rose by 4.18% last week although volumes remain low. There is still no overly positive catalyst in Lagos which indicates that this strength could just be a bit of a dead cat bouncing. The Banks showed solid gains of 3.20% highlighted by GT Bank (N24.10, +4.87%), ETI (N20.00, +5.10%) and Zenith Bank (N16.90, +5.23%). The Consumers were also up by 5.84% led by the likes of PZ (N34.51, +25.26%), NB (N135.00, +11.57%) and Guinness (N131.00, +4.72%). Results are still coming out and last week we saw the likes of Intbrew, Dangote Flour and Forte Oil release.

Kenya:

After 4 consecutive weeks of weakness we finally saw a respite with the NSE20 and the NASI gaining 20bps (-13.60% YTD) and 1.4% (-7.6% YTD) respectively. There were some chunky block trades throughout the week as turnover rose to an impressive $61m. Foreigners also remain heavily dominant on both sides of the equation. The most active stock for the week was Safcom. The telco touched a 7 month low of KES13.90 before rallying into the close (+1%, KES14.55). The banks had a mixed week on some good activity with Equity Bank gaining an impressive 10.2% to KES43.25 while KNCB slid by 1.5% to KES49.25. EABL is also showing some signs of stability and closed up 3.4% at KES304.00.

Zimbabwe:

The ZSE remains out of favour as we saw the Industrials fall another 1.22% last week (YTD -11.80%) on thin volumes. Demand across the board remains weak and this was most notable in names like Econet (-6.28%, 30c), Delta (-2.51%, 97c) and Innscor (-1.95%, 61.75c). Please note that Zimbabwe is closed on both Monday and Tuesday for the Heroes Day holidays.

Mauritius:

The Semdex and the Sem-10 both closed marginally higher last week. Activity remains generally dull though with the lion's share of the excitement still taking place in MCBG. After reaching all-time highs the previous week we saw some profit takers return in MCBG (-1.4%, Rs221.75) while SBMH closed unchanged at Rs0.89.

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