Movers & Shakers: December 18, 2013

Botswana: No data available

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.05%, USD 69m

The market traded with mixed sentiment, leaving the EGX30 to end the day up just 5bps. Market volumes were relatively strong compared to recent average turnovers, with the market trading a total turnover of EGP474 million. More than third of volume was traded in the last 45 minutes of trading. After yesterday’s strong close the market started the day with some profit booking mainly lead by institutional investors (international and local) to reach a low of 6686.50 points, where names such as SWDY, GHTE, and OCDI witnessed pressure leaving each to end the day down 1.27%, 0.83% and 1.10% respectively. Toward the end of the session the market witnessed a notable change in sentiment as local institutions became notable buyers targeting names such as COMI (+0.68%) and ESRS (+0.26%), which reached a new 52-week high at EGP15.59.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.42%, USD 8.5m

Foreign investors turned net buyers for the first time in recent sessions and were pretty active overall. Foreign buying arrested the slide in Safcom as the name gained 1% to KES 9.95 while EABL was also stable at KES 289. The banks continue to struggle and we saw KNCB fall by 60bps to KES 44.50 and Equity Bank lose 2.27% to KES 32.25. Interestingly, there was a cross (both sides foreign) in Transcentury while another slightly illiquid name Bamburi also traded high volumes – mostly local crosses.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.14%, USD 592k

Sluggish day in Port Louis as nothing really got going. NMH fell by 1.67% to Rs88.50 and Terra lost 26bps to Rs38.90. Small gains were recorded in MCB (+24bps, Rs206.25) and Alteo (+13bps, Rs37.40).

Nigeria: ASI +0.65%, USD 23.3m

A few crosses yet again dominated the volumes in Lagos. The bulls returned to both the banking (+66bps) and consumer (+75bps) sectors. Banks were led higher by strength in Zenith (+2.14%, N21.96) with Zenith also leading the turnover charts. There was also decent activity in ETI and FBNH. Consumers were led higher by strength in the drinks section as we saw Intbrew rise by 5.25% to N29.88< NB rise by 2.5% to N165 and Guinness increase by 2.1% to N240. These were offset slightly by losses in Unilever (-4.78%, N52) and PZ (-4.6%, N34.76). Transcor had another busy day and closed up 2% at N3.95.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.14%, USD 1.2bn

The JSE had a largely unchanged day while the Rand remains steady. The ZAR was at R10.32, R16.93 and R14.20 vs the USD, GBP and EUR respectively at the time of writing.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.90%, Mining +0.09%, USD 1.08m

The ZSE fell yet again but despite the weakness in recent months the Industrials are still up an impressive 31% YTD. The weakness was mainly due to the smaller cap stocks while we saw some price stability in the likes of Econet (62c) and Delta (135c) although activity was lower than normal ahead of tomorrow’s National Budget.

African Currencies