Movers & Shakers: February 13, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.10%, USD 2.04m

A large cross in Turnstar today livened up a dull day as 10mill shares crossed in the name at 150t accounting for almost the entire turnover for the session. Some small volumes went through in Choppies and some of the smaller cap names.

Egypt: EGX 30 -0.41%, USD 56m

The market traded with a mixed sentiment today to end the day in negative territory, leaving the EGX30 to end the day down 0.41% to close at 5,732.14 points. Market went back today to trade weak volumes, the market traded at total turnover of USD 56m. The market started the day with a negative sentiment to reach a low of 5728.20 points, at med day OCI’s EGM approved the MTO, the market managed to gain a breath to trade in the greens, yet international institutions pressured the market to end in the reds. OCIC managed to gain local investors appetite after AGM approved the MTO of EGP280 for the minority stake in the company, the former ended the day up 1.65%. Names such as ORTE, COMI and TMGH witnessed notable selling today, each ending the day down 2.00%, 1.68% and 1.40% respectively.

Investor mix:
•  Foreigners were net Sellers by 38.67 mn EGP and were 18.05% of the market.
•  Egyptians were net Buyers by 44.19 mn EGP and were 77.61% of the market.
•  Arabs were net Sellers by 5.52 mn EGP and were 4.34% of the market.
•  Institutions were net Sellers by 23.75 mn EGP and were 26.33% of the market.
•  Retail were net Buyers by 23.75 mn EGP and were 73.66% of the market.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.32%, USD 11.4m

Equity turnover remained largely unchanged today with foreign investors accounting for 82% of the days trades. The NSE 20 index gained 0.32% to close at 4,648.09 points levels last seen in 2010. EABL continued to move large volumes accounting for 64% of the days volumes ahead of 1H13 earnings on Friday. Of the top movers foreign investors were net buyers in CIC insurance, Barclays and KCB and net sellers in Safaricom. Barclays Bank eased 2.1% to KES 16.15, after posting single digit growth in FY12 EPS today. Co-op Bank climbed 1.4% to KES 14.05 today driven by strong local investor demand. Access Kenya led the top gainers list touching its 12 month high of KES 6.95 during trading, though it closed the session at KES 6.65, 4.7% higher than the previous session. Nation Media sustained its momentum edging up 3.4% to touch a new high of KES 270. On the losing end NIC Bank witnessed profit taking sliding 3.7% to KES 45, following a rally in it s price in previous sessions.

Mauritius: Data not available

Due to the heavy flooding in Mauritius the market was closed early and a detailed market report was not available at the time of writing.

Nigeria: ASI -0.40%, USD 35.64m

Another lively session in Nigeria as a chunky $35m changed hands with the index falling by 40bps. However, this is distorted somewhat by some large bookovers in Dangcem that went through shortly before the close. In total, more than $7mill traded in the name, with Dangcem eventually closing at N140 (-71bps). As always, the banking sector saw the lion’s share of proceedings with the BNK10 closing down 46bps. Most banking names closed marginally in the red although UBA and SkyeBank were the noticeable outperformers in the sector. Consumers were slightly soft with NB (N163, -62bps), Guinness (N291, -1.84%) and PZ (N41.85, -2.90%) all closing down slightly.

South Africa: Top 40 +0.28%, USD 1.33bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.28% to close at 36,387 while value traded amounted to USD 1.33bn. Resources were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 0.93% followed by Financials which gained 0.24% while Industrials fell 0.20%. The Rand was trading at 8.84 and 11.90 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zambia: LuSE -0.35%, USD 6.6k

After the cross yesterday in SCZ that highlighted yesterday’s session, today saw a return to the usual drab proceedings. Just $6.6k traded while the index slipped by 35bps as the Lusaka exchange continues to get worse and worse in terms of liquidity.

Zimbabwe: Inudsutrials -0.16%, Mining unch, USD 1.20m

Stocks eased further in mid week trades recording a third straight loss as profit taking persist in the absence of new stimuli. The ZSE mainstream index dropped 0.16% or 0.29% to settle at 182.04points but remains an impressive 19.45% higher than the year-opening figures. The mining index however remained steady at 80.15points with no trades taking place as investors take caution after the government reposed 27,948 hectares of “excess” land with platinum reserves from Zimplats amid indications that the same move will happen to other players in the mining sector deemed to have excess claims. Market breath favored losers once more with losers’ count of seven outnumbering 5 gainers. DELTA and INNSCOR were once again the biggest causalities of the downward trend easing 2c apiece to 122.50c and 92c respectively. Gains were seen in ECONET which rose a further 3.42% or 21.19c to an all time high of 641.20 cents buoyed by the proposed 1:10 share splits to become effective in March after the EGM scheduled for 28 February. Trading activity was light with volumes declining 83% to 3.58m units while value traded was slightly up amounting to $1.2m.

African Currencies