African Thoughts: August 15, 2016

Nigeria:

Interest continues to decline in Lagos as turnover fell -19.43% to $33.47m for the entire week as activity is now starting to plumb new depths. Unfortunately with such low activity there are no names worth mentioning as there were no decent crosses over the entire course of the week. The market closed slightly lower with the ASI falling -0.65% as consumer stocks were the hardest hit with the sector falling -1.54% thanks to heavy losses in 7UP (-9.29%), Flour Mills (-9.01%), PZ (-7.67%) and NB (-1.90%). Banking stocks also closed in negative territory with the sector closing -0.56% lower thanks to Zenith (-13.87%) after the banking heavyweight reported worse than expected H1 2016 results while ETI (-3.72%) and UBA (-2.44%) also closed lower. Unfortunately with volumes at record lows, there is nothing else to report from Lagos.

Kenya:

Things were no better in Nairobi from an activity point of view as the northern hemisphere holiday season continues to impact volumes with turnover falling -53.9% to $17.6m. The market also came under pressure from a performance point of view with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.9%, taking the YTD loss to -14.6%. The only positive was the fact that foreigners were net buyers to the tune of $4.5m, while their participation stood at 55.9%. Safcom continued to drive proceedings as the telco accounted for 27.2% of activity and now up +22.7% YTD as foreign demand continues to push the name higher. The two major banking stocks managed to close higher, albeit on small volumes, with KNCB gaining +1.6% while EQBNK closed +0.7% higher. EABL on the other hand closed lower with the brewer falling -1.1%.

Zimbabwe:

The market managed to close in positive territory in Harare with the Industrial Index gaining +0.26% (YTD -13.29%) thanks to positive movements in INN (+2.70%), NTFD (+0.37%) and Seedco (+0.28%). Another positive was the increase in activity as turnover increased +408% to $3.7m. This should however be taken with a pinch of salt as Delta accounted for 75% of turnover thanks to a decent cross done last week Thursday, while the rest of the market remains extremely quiet.

Mauritius:

The market ended the week lower in Port Louis with the Semdex falling -0.85% (YTD -1.1%), thanks to losses in Alteo (-4.8%) and Rogers (-2.5%). Activity was rather muted with turnover amounting to a sub-par $4.2m with moth most of the activity centered on MCBG, SBMH and LUX. The two major banking stocks ended the week mixed with MCBG closing -0.2% lower while SBMH gained +2.9%. Hoteliers came under a bit of pressure with LUX and NMH falling -2.9% and -1.4% respectively.