Movers & Shakers: December 11, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.01%, USD 8k

Technical difficulties on the BSE meant that it was always going to be a quiet session– investors do not like to participate when such issues are going on. Absolutely nothing of any consequence took place on the bourse today.

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.42%, USD 44m

The market witnessed an extremely slow session with static trading, pushing the EGX30 up 0.42% to close at 6,488.72 points. Market volumes were significantly low, with shares worth USD 44mchanging hands. With the lack of a catalyst, the market witnessed a notably slow session lead by local investors and GCC institutions. Names such as ELKA, AIND, and ACGC witnessed buying interest pushing each up 2.01%, 4.82%, and 3.27% respectively. The real estate sector witnessed some buying appetite, with names such as AMER, OCDI, and TMGH ending the day up 1.56%, 2.02%, and 1.03%, respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.62%, USD 8.7m

Activity remained rather robust ahead of the long weekend with value traded amounting to $8.7m as foreigners accounted for 56.2% of total activity. Safcom dominated turnover (35.8%) as atotal of 26.98m shares traded with foreigners accounting for 96.7% of sales with the telco falling -1.5% to close at KES10.05. EABL managed to bounce back after it's recent sell-off with the brewer gaining 1.4% to close at KES 294 with foreigners dominating both sides of the name. Foreign selling continued in Kenya Commercial Bank (66.7%), but the counter however managed to close higher at KES 44.75. Centum traded lower but recovered towards the end of the session to lose just 0.8% as a third competing bidder came into the race to purchase minority shares in Rea Vipingo which is a takeover target from majority shareholders

Mauritius: Semdex +0.22%, USD 1.54m

Another strong day for NMH (+2.95%, Rs87) led the Sem-7 higher by 23bps. There was also a small gain of 14bps in Alteo to Rs36.65 and a marginal fall in MCB to Rs205.75.

Nigeria: ASI -0.30%, USD 18.28m

A couple of crosses in Nestle and Dangcem spiked up volumes in a generally quiet day. Banks had a marginally positive day with most names more or less unchanged and Tier 1 names dominating the volume charts. Consumers lost 84bps with weakness in NB (-2.99%, N162.01) and Unilever (-1.16%, N59.86) the main laggards. As mentioned, DangCem saw some decent crossing at the N200 level.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -0.50%, USD 1.32bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 0.50% to close at 39,736 while value traded amounted to USD 1.32bn. Resources were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 1.20% followed by Financials and Industrials which fell 0.45% and 0.09% respectively. The Rand was trading at 10.38 and 14.32 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.31%, Mining -1.82%, USD 1.04m

After weeks of sideways trading, the equities market has finally followed a definite path on the downside. Heavy cap losses have sustained the industrials weakeness. In today’s session the industrials dropped 0.31% to 208.29pts weighed by losses in 5 heavy cap stocks with the market gains failing to hold. Equally the mining index eased 1.82% to 43.77pts on losses in Falgold of 14% to 6c to make it the worst performer for the day. The dearth in prices comes amidst fundamental macroeconomic weaknesses among other things the country's trade deficit which in the ten months to October reportedly widened to $3.76b from imports of $6.55b and exports of $2.78b. The much awaited presentation of the national budget slated for next week Thursday has seemingly failed to excite the market that has continued in weakness.

African Currencies