Movers & Shakers: December 04, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.02%, USD 2.15m

Outside of a large cross in Letshego nothing happened in Botswana. The cross took place at 230t which is where the name closed.

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.60%, USD 37m

The market managed regain some of yesterday’s losses to end the day on positive sentiment, with the EGX30 up 0.60% to 6,281.52 points. Market volumes were significantly low relative to recent turnovers, trading a total turnover of USD 37m. The market managed to regain some minor bullish momentum after witnessing profit booking over the last couple of sessions. Local retail went back to being buyers along with local institutions, targeting various names such as JUFO, EFIC, and GTHE ending the day up 1.43%, 2.91% and 1.09% respectively. The real estate sector managed to gain some interest after pressure over the last couple of sessions. TMGH managed to end the day up 0.54% and OCDI 1.25%.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.66%, USD 8.6m

Things slowed down in Nairobi today but activity was still rather robust as value traded amounted to $8.6m. Kenya Commercial Bank was once again the most active stock as 3.62m shares traded with foreigners accounting for 96.4% of sales. Foreigners also accounted for the mojority of sales (90.8%) in Equity Bank as 1.74m shares traded. Foreigners dominated activity in Safcom as the the telco continued to come-off (-0.50%) on 12.5m shares. Centum was the day’s top gainer climbing 7.8% to touch a new 12-month high of KES 34.50. The investment firm has witnessed strong investor demand over the past few months following numerous corporate actions including the acquisition of one of the largest local fund managers (Genesis) as well as planned acquisition of the largest sisal producer in Africa (Rea Vipingo).

Mauritius: Semdex -0.15%, USD 1.6m

The Semdex slipped a little today with only 3 stocks in the Sem-7 moving and all of these moved south. NMH lost 61bps to Rs82, ENL Land fell by 98bps to Rs50.50 and Terra lost 1.12% to Rs39.75.

Nigeria: ASI +0.09%, USD 38.33m

A fairly active day with some crossing dominating the day. Banks lost 57bps throughout the day with weakness in Tier 2 names all closing in the red while Tier 1 names were more mixed. Tier 1 names saw some chunky volumes with Zenith seeing more than $8m changing hands (+94bps, N21.50) while GTB lost 1.76% to N27.31 on good volumes. Consumers were marginally positive for the day with strength in Flourmills (+2.89%, N91.85) and Unilever (+2.63%, N60.56) being offset by Cadbury (-2.16%, N61.49). Transcor continues to trade in a crazy way and was again very strong, +7.8%, N4.42 on big volumes.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.16%, USD 1.41bn

The JSE had a rather mixed day with Golds (-1.45%) getting particularly hard hit. The Rand remains firmly on the back foot and was trading at R10.42, R17.03 and R14.11 vs the USD, GBP and EUR respectively at the time of writing.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.50%, Mining -5.0%, USD 7.1m

The market saw another special bargain, this time in mid cap stock Zimplow, that helped propel turnover to $7.1m. Save to say in normal trades Econet spurn a staggering 4,2m shares worth $2.7m to highlight the top value contributors. The Zimplow special bargain of 30,000,000 shares at 3.27c comes as a third in a row after 2 special bargains in Monday and Tuesday trades in Delta worth a consolidated $8.7m. Week to date total value traded has reached $19.5m with two more sessions to go. Overall volume traded at 42,2m was 105% above yesterday. The flurry in activity on the ZSE lately has been driven by foreign demand as locals continue to suffer from a liquidity crunch. However foreign appetite has been concentrated among the blue chip stocks on high risk aversion.

African Currencies