African Thoughts: December 05, 2016

Nigeria:

It was unfortunately much of the same in Lagos from an activity point of view as turnover increased +54.71% to a very dull $31.7m with a few crosses in some of the big names but nothing to write home about. On the positive side, the market managed to close the week in positive territory with the ASI gaining +1.61%, trimming the YTD loss to -10.13%. Banking stocks were the star performers for the week with the sector closing +4.18% higher thanks to good performances in GTB (+9.21%), ETI (+3.89%) and Zenith (+1.67%). Consumers managed to close the week slightly higher with the sector gaining +0.74% thanks to Cadbury (+9.55%), NB (+1.45%) and GSK (+1.00%). Unfortunately there is nothing much else to report from Lagos as foreign investors remain on the sidelines for the most part.

Kenya:

Activity managed to increase in Nairobi, but this should be taken with a pinch of salt as it came off a very low base and remains well below par, with turnover increasing +46.6% to $27.58m. Safcom (+0.03%) was the major mover behind proceedings and accounted for 44.9% of total value traded while the telco also recorded the highest net foreign inflows to the tune of $2.04m. The rest of the market heavyweights were very quiet with small activity in EABL ($4.7m), EQBNK ($3.6m) and KNCB ($2.4m). The market continued to struggle with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.5%, taking the YTD loss to -19.6%. EABL (-5.1%) was the major drag on the market while KNCB (-2.5%) and EQBNK (-0.8%) also struggled. In its meeting held last week, the MPC retained the central bank rate at 10%.

Zimbabwe:

It was a very impressive week from an activity point of view (relatively speaking) in Harare with turnover increasing +68.21% to $9.5m with some action in Delta (53%) and Econet (17%). The market also continues to impress from a performance point of view with the Industrial Index gaining +6.07%, taking the YTD gain to +21.58%. There were some good performances in Innscor (26.25%), OK Zim (+21.25%), Econet (+7.63%) and Delta (+5.86%).

Mauritius:

It was a relatively decent week from an activity point of view in Port Louis as turnover amounted to $7.51m, but this should however be taken with a pinch of salt as MCBG, SBMH and Sanlam together accounted for 73.9% of total value traded. On the negative side, the market closed the week slightly lower with the Semdex falling -0.32%, taking the YTD loss to -0.03%. MCBG managed to close the week +0.1% higher on the back of foreign purchases while SBMH closed the week -2.0% lower on foreign selling. It was a good week for hotelier as NMH gained +1.1% while SUN closed +0.3% higher.