African Thoughts: September 01, 2014

It was a very quiet week across the African markets last week. Monday saw a holiday in the UK while today is Labor Day in the US. What little activity there has been has also been skewed to local investors as foreign investors have generally been happy to watch from the sidelines.

Nigeria:

The NSE ASI ended the week just 8bps lower than where it started on a week where, besides Friday (month end) there was not much on the go. Banks gained a solid 2.20% for the week as strength in the Tier 1 names on Thursday and Friday pushed the sector higher. Consumers slid by a gentle 23bps for the week. Some of the notable moves included a gain of 10.17% in Betaglass to N18.85 and a 5.69% rise in 7UP (N134). In the banks there were sold gains for UBA (+5.26%, N7.60) and GTB (+4.80%, N29.90). The weakness in the consumers was primarily thanks to falls in Cadbury (-10.27%, N59.85) and Guinness (-2.63%, N185). Transcor was heavily traded (mainly local) as the name closed the week at N6.10 (+6.64%).

Kenya:

The NSE 20 rose by a solid 2.20% last week although volumes remain light and activity was still skewed to local investors. There were a couple of suspicious trades in BATK which definitely skewed both foreign activity as well as total turnover. Outside of this, Safcom was the most active stock as the bulls pushed the Telco up by 1.6% to KES 12.95. There was also some decent activity in KNCB with the banking name gaining 90bps to KES 57.50. Indicative of the fact that foreign participation was rather low was the fact that EqBnk and EABL were mostly quiet while other names like NIC and DTB were both rather active. EABL actually fell by 4.5% for the week to KES 277 although the name was generally quiet.

Zimbabwe:

Despite a fall in the Industrials by 81bps last week the index was actually up 4.44% for August thus having a YTD performance of -2.82%. The market remains incredibly dull though with foreign investment generally quiet as we saw most large caps marginally soft. Delta fell by 1% to 135c while Insccor fell by 3% to 76c and OKZim slid by 8% to 16.5c. It was a very dull week across the board.

Mauritius:

Both the Semdex and the Sem-7 slid by 40bps last week as there was general softness across most stocks. The banking names slid slightly towards the close with MCBG finishing down 40bps at Rs208.75 and SBM down by 90bps at Rs1.06. Bramer Banking fell by 1.7% to Rs6.80. in the hotels we saw Lux rise by 1% to Rs50.00 while there was weakness in NMH (-60bps, Rs87.00) and Sun Resorts (-1.3%, Rs44.20).