African Thoughts: June 24, 2013

A tough week for global markets with a lot of red across screens. Global focus was on the Fed announcement, and a pullback was noticeable after the comments for the tapering of the QE stimulus.

Egypt:

The market witnessed a range bound week where the EGX30 ended almost flat. Despite an attempt to rebound at the beginning, by mid-week the momentum was lost again; mostly affected by the on-going political unrest and as many investors continue with their selling sentiment ahead of the 30th planned protests.

Nigeria:

The Nigerian ASI dropped by 2.11% last week as profit taking in a number of names became evident, particularly in the banks (-97bps) and consumers (-2.21%). Some of the consumer names were among the worst performers for the week, most notably Unilever (-10.92%) and Flourmills (-10%).

Botswana:

The DCI fell by 31bps for last week with thinly traded stock FSG the biggest loser (-2.94%). The big stocks obviously saw the bulk of the trading activity yet no massive price movements in these. Economic data out showed inflation slowed down to 6.1% in May (down from 7.2% in April), just 10bps lower than the Bank of Botswana 3-6% target range. Meanwhile, the MPC cut the bank rate by 50bps to 8.5%.

Kenya:

A pretty active week in Nairobi while the NSE-20 lost 2.07% and the NSE ASI lost 1.34%. The banks saw the bulk of the week’s turnover with demand in the large banks the main focus, Equity Bank closing up 78bps at KES32.50 and KNCB closing up 1.31% at KES38.75. Despite a strong start to the week for Safcom, selling in decent size pushed the stock lower by 3.57% to KES6.75 by the end of the week. EABL has stabilized around the KES340 level.

Mauritius:

The Mauritian indices grew by 30bps (Semdex) and 20bps (Sem-7) respectively. There were several dividend announcements during the week, the most notable of which was MCB, which announced a Rs3.35 dividend. MCB was again highly traded yet ended the week down 50bps to Rs188. SBM ended the week unchanged at Rs1.04. Other Sem-7 stocks were NMH (+70bps), Alteo (+1%) and Terra (+3.7%).

Francophone Region:

A tough week in the BRVM as the index fell by 1.16% with the biggest fallers being UNIWAX (-16.47%) and SODECI (-14.25%). Sonatel fell by 52bps and as always is a kind of bellwether for the market.

Tanzania:

The week was totally dominated by non-resident investors as CRDB and TBL both saw some chunky trading. The TBL cross was a local seller but East African buyer.