African Thoughts: May 08, 2017

Nigeria:

One of the most noticeable trends in the SSA space was some buying by foreign investors in the Tier 1 Nigerian Banks. Selling in the sector was largely local but foreign buying drove the sector up by 3.64% and hence pulled the index 1.82% higher. There were also some pleasing volumes that went through throughout the duration of the week, particularly in the large names like Zenith Bank and GTB. Consumers (+2.98%) tried to catch onto the coattails and also rose by 2.98%, albeit on much smaller volumes. We also witnesses a large local-local cross in Oando on Friday.

Kenya:

The Kenyan market remains very quiet, with only Safcom seeing some decent trading. The telco witnessed some nice crosses and inched its way up steadily to end the week at KES19.75 (+2.60%). EABL also saw 1 or 2 crosses and closed up 1.30% at KES233.00. Both banks finally got some buying interest (albeit on small volumes) and we saw KNCB gain 4.76% to KES33.00 while EqBnk rose by 4.54% to KES34.50.

Zimbabwe:

The Harare bourse is also extremely dull currently. The bulk of the trading is being done by local investors because foreign investors are very wary of being involved (on both buy and sell side). The large caps continued to inch higher. Econet rose by 10.80% to 20c while Delta climbed by 2.61% to 88c. The Industrials rose by 1.61% for the week (YTD = +0.51%).

Mauritius:

In Port Louis we had a very quiet week, especially compared to some of the recent excitement we have seen in the banks. The Semdex inched higher by 51bps on low volumes. In economic news, the MPC unanimously decided to keep the Key Repo Rate unchanged at 4.00%.

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