African Thoughts: June 19, 2017


Nigeria:

The ASI rose by 1.60% last week and is now up an impressive 25.81% YTD. Both Banks (+4.99%) and Consumers (+51bps) closed the week in the green. The leading lights in the banking sector included ETI (N14.33, +13.19%), Zenith Bank (N22.89, +10.58%), Stanbic (N31.00, +6.90%) and Guaranty (N35.73, +6.66%). Major risers amongst the consumers included Unilever (N42.99, +20.93%), Okomuoil (N70.18, +15.75%), NB (N164.00, +5.13%), GlaxoSmithKline (N21.59, +4.55%) and Flourmill (N28.50, +3.26%).

Kenya:

The NSE 20 rose by a solid 2.10% last week on the back of some decent turnover, once again mostly in Safcom. The telco had another solid week and closed up 3.30% at KES23.50. As mentioned, the stock continues to bear the fruits of the bulk of the crosses in the market. Interestingly, some crossing in the normally illiquid KNOC (+5.35%, KES12.80) was the second most active stock for the week. The rest of the market was rather uneventful with nothing exciting worth writing home about.

Zimbabwe:

The market continued full steam ahead in Zimbabwe with the Industrial Index gaining an impressive 6.91%, taking the YTD gain to +31.51% as aggressive local investors continue to drive prices higher. There were solid gains in SeedCo (+14.09%) and Delta (+13.61%). Activity was also very impressive as total value traded for the week amounted to $8.3m thanks mostly to Econet (49%) and Innscor (25%) on the back of local crosses. Foreign investors remain firmly on the sidelines.

Mauritius:

It was a decent week on the activity front in Mauritius with total value traded amounting to $7.3m as the usual market heavyweights MCBG and SBMH drove proceedings, while we finally saw some form of broad based activity with some action in IBL, GAMMA and CIEL. MCBG’s unbelievable run continued with the banking behemoth closing the week at a new al-time high of Rs255.25, while banking counterpart SBMH (-1.9%) closed lower after going ex-div on Tuesday. Hoteliers ended the week mixed with SUN and LUX falling -4.5% and -0.8% respectively while NMH closed +0.2% higher.

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