African Thoughts: May 04, 2014


Nigeria:

It was rather slow going in Lagos from an activity point of view as turnover fell -29.95% to $60.41m due to the shortened trading week as a result of the Labor Day holiday. There was some action in the likes of GTB and Zenith while the broader market was very quiet. On a positive note, the market managed to close the week in positive territory as the ASI gained +0.64% thanks to Consumer stocks (+0.65%) with Unilever (+5.78%), NB (+3.98%) and Guinness (+1.19%) being amongst the best performers. Banks on the other hand closed lower with the index falling -1.69% as Access (-5.07%) and Zenith (-3.86%) came under pressure. Market heavyweight DangCem had a strong week and gained +5.43%. There were a host of companies that released Q1 2015 results last week.

Kenya:

The market finally managed to break an eight week losing streak with the NSE 20 Index gaining +0.6% while turnover fell -30% to $25.8m. Foreigners were net sellers to the tune of $1.2m while foreign participation fell to 49.8%. Safcom was the most active name for the week ahead of FY 2015 results (due out this week) and managed to gain +0.6%. Britam came under some pressure and fell -2.2% after the company restated its FY 2014 EPS to KES 1.29. The two major banking stocks closed the week lower with KNCB falling -0.8% while EQBNK fell -0.5%. Foreign demand returned to EABL as the brewer gained +0.6% and registered the highest net inflows ($808k).

Zimbabwe:

Activity continues to underwhelm in Harare as turnover fell -80.2% to $1.25m for the entire week with foreigners all but absent. The market also continues to come under pressure as the Industrial Index fell -0.83% taking the YTD loss to -4.01%. The likes of CBZ, Econet and OK dominated whatever little activity there was. Unfortunately there is not much else to report with things being so dull.

Mauritius:

A solid week in Port Louis as the Semdex gained +1.3%, trimming the YTD loss to -5.7%. It was a rather average week from a turnover point of view as total value traded amounted to $9.1m thanks to MCBG and SBMH as the two names accounted for 88% of turnover. Both banking stocks also had a solid week from a performance point of view as MCBG gained +1.6% while SBMH gained +6.8%.

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