Movers & Shakers: December 17, 2013

Botswana: No data available

Egypt: EGX 30 +1.15%, USD 89m

The market managed pick up bullish momentum to end the day in positive territory with the EGX30 up 1.15%. Market volumes significantly improved compared to recent average turnover, trading a total turnover of EGP613 million. The market managed to bounce back after witnessing some minor profit booking yesterday. The momentum was mainly lead by local investors (retail and institutional) targeting names such as OTMT, JUFO, and HRHO with each ending the day up 2.70%, 1.83%, and 1.39% respectively. The real-estate sector continued to gain notable interest with names like TMGH, AMER, and PHDC trading above-average volumes, ending the day up 1.15%, 3.03%, and 1.94% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.74%, USD 10.5m

Another sprightly day in terms of activity although weakness in the large caps continue to weigh on the market. Foreign activity was generally muted and skewed to the sell side. We once again saw softness in Safcom (-1.5%, KES 9.85), KNCB (-60bps, KES 44.75), Equity Bank (-80bps, KES 33.00) and EABL (-70bps, KES289). Centum saw a couple of chunky crosses and aggressive local buyers pushed the name higher by 5.5% to close at KES 33.75.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.01%, USD 9.5m

A cross in the little known Rockcastle Global Real Estate Company was the bulk of the volumes today. In normal trading the banks were both pretty active yet each closed unchanged – MCB at Rs206 and SBM at Rs1.05. Terra fell by 76bps to Rs39 while IBL rose by 1% to Rs101.

Nigeria: ASI -1.42%, USD 26.3m

The ASI reversed most of yesterday’s gains and this was once again primarily due to Dangote Cement. DangCem closed down 5% at N210 today on decent volume. The rest of the market was dominated by blocks, no surprise there. Banks were unchanged with most names hugging their opening prices. Volumes were dominated by crosses in Access (+95bps, N9.59), FCMB (unch, N3.19) and ETI (-68bps, N14.60) while GTB, FBNH and Zenith were also rather active. Consumers fell mildly with softness in Guinness (-4.85%, N235.01) offset by gains in PZ (+2.3%, N36.45) and Intbrew (+5%, N28.39).

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

South Africa: Top 40 +1.59%, USD 1.35bn

The JSE caught up to global markets after the close yesterday with green across the screens. The Rand remains relatively range-bound and was trading at R10.35, R16.85 and R14.24 vs the USD, GBP and EUR respectively.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.66%, Mining unch, USD 2.29m

Activity improved on the ZSE in today’s session. The National Budget is due out in 2 days’ time but thus far this has failed to excite investors. Market heavyweights continue to see weakness and we saw the likes of OK Zim (-4.5%, 19.1c), BATZ (-6.25%, 1200c) and Econet (-1.27%, 62c) all trade weaker. Delta seems to have temporarily found a level here at 135c. Foreign investors were skewed to the buy side.

African Currencies