Movers & Shakers: December 14, 2012

African Currencies

Botswana: DCI +0.04%, USD 1.44m

As usual, activity dominated by Letshego – more than 5.2m shares changed hands in the counter with the name closing unchanged at 196t. Small trading occurred in ABCH, Choppies, FNBB, FSG, NAP, PrimeTime and Stanchart.

Egypt: Market closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.61%, USD 2.8m

It was a subdued start in Kenya but once the European markets came in the spark picked up as $8.9m changed hands. Action was centered on Safcom, Equity Bank, EABL, KNCB and BATK. Blocks went through in Safcom for most of the session with both sides heavily dominated by foreign investors, the name eventually settled at KES 5.05 (+1.01%). EABL traded most of the day at 260 in good size but due to the rounding down nature of the closing prices in Nairobi the name closed at KES 259 (+80bps). Banks were also active, Equity Bank closing up 1.1% at KES 23.50 on good volume while KNCB closed up an impressive 3.64% at KES 28.50. BATK was the other highly traded name, some block action going through as the name closed up 1.3% at KES 466. An unconfirmed story on KenolKobil (termination of Puma Energy/KenolKobil takeover) meant that KNOC took a proper beating, closing down 9.49% at KES 13.35 as investors could not sell the name quickly enough.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.25%, USD 1.1m

MCB action once again dominated the turnover (43%) although the name fell 59bps to close at Rs168. SBM also saw some activity, but the bank closed unchanged at Rs89. Among the Sem-7, we also saw falls in NMH (-1.85%), Terra (-0.25%), and Rogers (-1.32%). The Semdex fell by 25bps while the Sem-7 closed down 45bps for the day.

Nigeria: ASI +0.08%, USD 13.08m

After a fat finger debacle in NB just after the open ($10mill cross booked in error, which was subsequently reversed) the market chugged along rather quietly throughout the day while the ASI ticked up 8 bps. Profit taking was again evident in the banks (BNK10 -53bps) with the biggest losers being UBA (-6.38%, N4.55), FCMB (-3.02%, N3.21) and GTB (-1.83%, N21.50). Consumers also saw nice activity today, Nigerian Breweries the most active in the entire market, closing up 1.85% at N165. Guinness closed up 1.92% at N265 while Cadbury closed marginally up and Nestle dropped marginally to N710 on good size. PZ got hammered, closing down 6.72% at N27.05 although on small volumes.

South Africa: Top 40 -0.03%, USD 1.6bn

The Top 40 closed down marginally with Resources and Gold leading the drag. At the time of writing, the ZAR was at R8.66, R11.34 and R13.96 vs the USD, EUR and GBP respectively.

Zambia: LuSE +0.56%, USD 38k

As usual, a dull day in Lusaka as just USD38k traded. The only names that saw any action were CEC, Lafarge, Zain, Zambeef and Zanaco. Zanaco and Zambeef were the most active of these while Zanaco was the biggest mover, gaining 56bps to close at ZMK181.

Zimbabwe: Ind +0.14%, Mining unch, USD 1.17m

The industrial index managed a recovery in week ending trades +0.14% to 147.48pts supported by gains in PPC and DZL despite loses in Econet. The industrial index is however down -0.78% on a week-on-week basis having opened the week at 148.05. The telecoms giant Econet was the only stock to trade in the negative as investors express pessimism over its intended takeover of TN Bank. TN bank on the other, basking in the limelight of becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Econet, rose +21.43% to 17c. Star Africa recovered +11.82% to 1.23c, RTG had a +5.26% advance to 2c, Pearl put on +4.17% to 2.50c Cement company PPC rose +2.63% to trade at 195c. Trading was sluggish as volumes dropped 35% to 2.83m shares the bulk of which was invested in DZL (1.6m) and Seedco (401 380) while active stock were just 23. Total turnover dropped 67% but remained above the million mark at $1.17m. Foreign participation was strong on both buy side and sell side accounting for 66% and 58% of the purchases and sales. The mining index was this week flat and remained unchanged for the five trading sessions resulting in the week on week analysis of the index showing no movement as well.