African Thoughts: March 16, 2014

Nigeria:

A rather lack luster week from an activity point of view in Lagos as turnover fell -5.37% to $115.83m with the highlight of the week being an off-market cross of 82m Oando @ N18.00 (on Thursday). There was some decent action in banking heavyweights Zenith and GTB over the course of the week. The market closed the week in negative territory with the ASI falling -1.06% as consumer stocks (-2.12%) were the hardest hit with IntBrew (-8.34%) and Dangote Sugar (-5.55%) dragging the sector lower. Banks closed slightly lower with the sector falling -0.05% with losses in Diamond (-5.76%) and Access (-5.28%). President Goodluck Jonathan announced that a new director-general will be appointed for the Securities and Exchange Commission by April.

Kenya:

The market closed lower for the second consecutive week with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.4% while turnover fell by a rather large 44.1% to $43m as foreign participation dropped to 44.6%. KNCB managed to close +0.8% higher but still saw the largest net foreign outflows of $1.0m while EQBNK (+1.0%) saw the largest net foreign inflows of $5.6m after the lender released FY 2014 numbers which saw PBT increase +17.9%. EABL had a rather solid week with the brewer gaining +1.7%. Co-op Bank and Britam will be releasing FY 2014 results on the 18th of March 2015 and the 20th of March 2015 respectively.

Zimbabwe:

Another absolutely dire week in Harare from an activity point of view as turnover fell -40.87% to $3.49m while the market also came under pressure as the Industrial Index fell -1.75% after the IMF downgraded its GDP forecast for Zimbabwe to 2.8%. There was a small bit of activity in the likes of Delta (38%), Seedco (16%) and Innscor (12%).

Mauritius:

The market came under pressure in Port Louis as the Semdex fell -1.2%, taking the YTD loss to -4.6%. Pressure in banking heavyweights MCBG and SBMH drove the market lower as the names fell -2.2% and -1.0% on the back of foreign selling. Hoteliers were also under pressure as NMH (-2.4%), SUN (-0.7%) and LUX (-0.5%) all closed lower. The market was also very quiet as turnover amounted to $4.3m with foreigners being net sellers.