Movers & Shakers: August 07, 2013

Botswana: DCI -0.43%, USD 105k

Some activity in BIHL (1050t) about the only trade that actually happened aside from a couple of scraps in a handful of names.

Egypt: EGX 30 -0.18%, USD 52m

The market ended the day in negative territory leaving the EGX30 to end the day down 0.18% to close at 5.616.38 points. Volumes were relatively normal ahead of the long Eid Holiday, the market traded a total turnover of USD 52m. After Senator McCain statements yesterday in Cairo urging the release of detained Islamists and which left the Egyptian government furious towards foreign intervention, the market traded the day with a negative sentiment as many investors continue to worry that the US statements could create more unrest. International and GCC institutions along with local retail investors ended the day as net sellers targeting names such as HRHO, ORTE and PHDC each ending the day down 1.30%, 0.86% and 1.61% respectively , its worth mentioning that local retail investors were notable buyer during most of the session yet managed to change their sentiment in the last hour of trading.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.37%, USD 14.4m

It was an absolute rip roaring day in Nairobi today in terms of activity with value traded amounting to a very impressive $14.4m. This was largely thanks to a very big cross in CFC Stanbic (11.8m shares at KES 63) which accounted for 60% of turnover, locals were on both sides of the cross. EABL was active once again today thanks to a few decent crosses in the name. There was some block action which drove activity in Kenya Commercial Bank as a total of 2.24m shares traded with foreigners prevalent on the buy side. Co-op released H1 2013 results which saw profits increase 16.7% while the name closed 0.62% higher on the day. Barclays Kenya released dissapointing results yesterday which caused the counter to fall 0.6% today. Bamburi Cement and TransCentury released H1 2013 results after the close which saw a decline of 10.2% and an increase of 196.4% in PAT respectively.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.40%, USD 693k

The Mauritian indices both gave back yesterday’s gains as the Semdex and Sem-7 lost 40bps and 50bps respectively. In the Sem-7 only 2 stocks actually moved, and both of these moved south. The worst affected by NMH which lost a mammoth 6% to Rs63 while Bramer Banking lost 60bps to Rs6.36. The fall in NMH can possibly be attributed to yesterday’s results announcement which showed lower revenues and profits. Also on the negative side we saw numbers of guest nights fall (-7.4%) while average revenue per guest also fell (-2.1%).

Nigeria: ASI -0.50%, USD 15.1m

A sluggish day as the market just couldn’t get going ahead of the long weekend – please remember that Nigeria is closed Thurs and Fri. The lack of interest created some selling pressure with the banks in particular feeling the pinch as the sector shed 1.13%. The name that was hardest hit was UBA which fell by 4.75% to N8.43 while other names were little changed. The consumers also fell as the sector lost 68bps, although again the lack of interest meant that the sector felt heavy. The biggest losers were Cadbury (-3.17%, N52.19), PZ (-2.11%, N44.05) and Unilever (-85bps, N63).

Please note that the index figure above is correct at the time of writing.

South Africa: Top 40 +0.13%, USD 1.37bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.13% to close at 37,177 while value traded amounted to USD 1.37bn. Financials were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 0.67% while Resources closed unchanged and Industrials fell 0.07%. The Rand was trading at 9.90 and 13.18 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zambia: LuSE +1.40%, USD 27k

Much of the same in Lusaka today with value traded amounting to USD 27k as BATZ ($10k) was the only name with some sort of volume.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -1.00%, Mining -2.61%, USD 4.2m

The two top capitalized counters on the bourse Delta and Econet saw heavy trading today that yielded $1.89m and $1.45m respectively to give market turnover a 56% boost to $4.2m. Both stocks were trading unchanged at prior prices of 120c and 55c. Retailers OK Zimbabwe chipped in after trades worth $0.6m were done as the stock fell -6.3% on huge selling pressure to end at 25.3c. Number of trades for the day declined -37% to 60 with active stocks confined to 18 counters only. The improved activity on ZSE was largely attributed to foreigners as both buys and sells were almost balanced with $3.4m inflows and $3.3m in outflows being growths of 157% and 78% respectively. The market was soft for the fourth day with industrials easing 1% to physiological level of 200.01pts while Minings shed -2.61% to 60.71pts. Join the losers band wagon was cigarette manufacturers BAT down -0.34% to 1470c closing offered at that level and diversified group TSL which came off -6.3% to 30c. Other losses were seen in holding company Innscor which lost -5.6% to 85c, and retailers OK dropping -6.3% to 25.30c.

African Currencies