African Thoughts: May 02, 2017

Nigeria:

The Nigerian market saw a plethora of results come out this week. These included Wapco, GTB, Ecobank, UBA, Access Bank, Seplat, Zenith Bank, Diamond Bank, Nestle and UACN, amongst others. This did bring about a slight uptick in terms of trading activity as the week progressed although in general the market remains muted. We also heard on Monday that the Central Bank plans to “float” the naira, however most investors remain cautious as they see exactly how this will pan out. The ASI rose by 2.29% for the week with demand for the banks (+6.11%) leading the way. The main outperformers included UBA (N5.82, +12.36%), ETI (N7.71, +8.59%), Guaranty (N26.63, +7.34%) and Access (N6.65, +6.23%). Consumers ended the week 5bps lower.

Kenya:

The NSE 20 in Kenya rose by 92bps for the week with some decent turnover of approximately $6m per day. All the large caps had their moments in the sun with some nice crosses going through in the “Big 4”. Safcom was the most active stock during the week and closed marginally higher at KES19.25. The banks had a mixed week – EqBnk rose by 76bps to KES33.00 while KNCB dropped by 7.35% to KES31.50. EABL also fell, closed down 4.17% at KES230.

Zimbabwe:

In Harare, we had a very quiet week with local dominating what little trade there was. Compounding the issue we saw “technical issues” on every day with most sessions starting much later than planned. The ZSE is hoping that this will be resolved by next Tuesday. As it was, the Industrials rose by 1.03% for the week which now leaves the YTD loss at -1.09%. Among the larger cap names, we saw gains in Simbisa (+4.39%, 17.85c), Innscor (+3.99%, 46.95c) and Econet (+3.44%, 18.05%).

Mauritius:

In Mauritius, the Semdex rose by 62bps and thus pushes the index up 11.53% for the YTD. Volumes were also rather high mostly thanks to MCBG which witnesses a number of meaty crosses during the week. The banking group rose by 20bps to Rs228.75 while SBMH dipped to Rs7.60 (-1.3%).

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