Movers & Shakers: February 08, 2013

Botswana: DCI -0.09%, USD 143k

Very dull in Gaborone today as a measly $143k changed hands. Surprisingly, the most active stocks were Barclays, primetime and Turnstar whereas the usual favourites Choppies and Letshego were dead.

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.60%, USD 7.1m

Equity turnover plunged 71.1% as blocks traded in the previous session were not evident tody. Foreign investors accounted for 58.5% of trades compared to 59.8% in the previous session. EABL, Safaricom and BAT trades were dominated by foreign investors on both the buy and sell side in what seemed like a combination of profit taking and positioning by the investors. Equity Bank and AccessKenya witnessed some heavy selling out but held up reasonably well. KCB gained 1.4% to KES 35.50 as local investors continued trading actively on the counter. Whereas demand by foreign investors was healthy, they only managed to buy 19.5% on the counter. Liquidity continues to play an important role in the bourse with demand from local institutions remaining healthy ahead of 4 March 2013 elections.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.24%, USD 2.27m

A small rise in the Semdex of 24bps while the Sem-7 inched up by just 3bps. In the Sem-7, NMH rose by 1.41% to Rs72 while Alteo limited rose by 30bps to Rs33.90. These gains were offset by a 52bp fall in SBM (Rs 95.50). The rest of the Port Louis bourse was rather muted.

Nigeria: ASI +0.20%, USD 20.3m

After the excitement of recent sessions we saw a much quieter day today in Lagos. The index inched up 20bps but for most of the day the activity was much quieter than in recent weeks. The banking sector recovered (BNK10 +54bps) with the sector names mixed in terms of performance. FCMB the best of the bunch closing up 3.8% at N5.19. Dangote Sugar was the most active of the consumers stocks and closed down 1.39% at N8.49 on good volume. Nestle also lost ground (-1.81%, N814.96) on good volumes while NB also lost 1.81% to close at N163.50.

South Africa: Top 40 +0.57%, USD 1.27bn

Another positive day for the JSE with most sectors closing in the green, except for the banks. The rand was trading at R8.88, R11.89 and R14.05 v the USD, EUR and GBP respectively at the time of writing.

Zambia: LuSE +0.84%, USD 58k

Yet again the Lusaka market dire – it seems like groundhog day each day we report on it. BATZ rose by 6.25% on thin volume while CEC rose by 2.56% on thin volume. The biggest faller was Zambia Sugar (-3.85%)

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.07%, Mining -2.31%, USD 1.08m

The industrial index shrugged off losses in two previous sessions to close the week higher albeit marginally after renewed interest in telecoms giant Econet cancelled off profit taking in Innscor and OK. By close of trades the Industrial index was just 0.07% higher at 183.93points registering its sixth weekly gain of 1.10%. Trading activity was thin with both volumes and turnover dropping 60% apiece to 3.69m shares and $1.08m respectively. ECONET recovered 1.67% of 10.01c to 610c as the group seeks a 1:10 share split meant to enhance liquidity in the share. Banking group NMBZ moved closer to the private placement price after gaining 10.81% to 1.23c. The group intends to raise $14.8m through private placement of 103,714,287 shares to three foreign investors at a price of 14.3c (after a 10:1 share consolidation). NATFOODS gained a 0.71% to 142c, DZLH pushed a further 2.48% to 26.05c, and OLD MUTUAL rose 0.27% to an all-time high of 185c. Today’s gains were countered by negative trades in INNSCOR which slipped 1.95% to 98c and Ok which lost 3.19% to 18.5c on profit taking. TN BANK was delisted from trading on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange following the successful buyout of minority by Econet. The mining index retreated 2.31% or 1.96 points to close at 83.00 points as a result of RIOZIM which was offered lower at 45cents. Bindura closed steady at 3.2c while Hwange and Falgold recorded no trades. Week on week the mining index shed 1.07 points (1.27%).

African Currencies