African Thoughts: October 10, 2016

Nigeria:

The ASI fell by a further 1.77% last week on yet another woefully dire week of trading in Lagos. Activity and general interest levels remain at all-time lows. As if to illustrate this, banks fell by 2.88% while consumers dropped by 2.69%. Losses in the Banking index were driven by Zenith Bank (N14.23, -6.44%), ETI (N11.10, -3.48%), Access Bank (N5.40, -2.70%) and Guaranty (N23.45, -2.29%). Consumers were pulled down by PZ (N18.64, -9.95%), Guinness (N88.45, -9.74%), Flourmill (N21.05, -3.97%), Glaxosmithkline (N19.00, -3.06%), Nestle (N800.00, -3.03%), NB (N145.80, -2.80%) and Unilever (N45.90, -2.34%).

Kenya:

The NSE 20 rose by 60bps last week which means that the YTD loss is now 19.3%. However, turnover dropped substantially as the lack of interest in African markets continue to permeate across the board. Once again, Safcom was the most active name as it gained 1.5% to KES20.25. There were also 1 or 2 crosses in the normally illiquid CFCI which closed at KES15.00. In normal trading, the banks were weak with Equity Bank sliding by 2.4% to KES30.00 while KNCB closed down 90bps at KES27.75. EABL was relatively stable at KES280.00.

Zimbabwe:

The Industrials rose by 2.15% last week thereby reducing the YTD loss for the index to 11.98%. We also saw a slight uptick in interest in the market although volumes remain well below historical norms. Most of the buying can be attributed to buying from local investors. One of the big drivers of the outperformance was Delta which closed up 4.17% to 62.5c.

Mauritius:

The Semdex and the Sem-10 rose by 44bps and 26bps respectively last week while activity remains generally muted. As always, the bulk of the action was focused on MCBG which gained 90bps to close at Rs223.00. SBMH ended the week unchanged at Rs0.70.

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