Movers & Shakers: January 18, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.06%, USD 2.15m

Very active day to end the week with value traded amounting to USD 2.15m thanks to crosses in Choppies and Letshego while the market closed the day higher with the DCI gaining 0.06% to close at 7,543.91. Sefalana (335t, +3t) was the only name that closed higher on the day while Letshego (200t, -5t) was the only counter to close lower.

Egypt: Market closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 -1.00%, USD 4.9m

The benchmark NSE 20 Share Index fell 1%, a day after sporadic chaos and disorganization was witnessed in the party primaries ahead of the March 4th general elections. Equity turnover fell further from the previous day, down 27.9%. Foreign investor activity slowed to 30.2% of the bourse from 42% in the previous session. The share of foreign investor buying fell from 60.6% to 38.1% while selling remained broadly at the same level. Safaricom and Bamburi Cement were the main movers during the day accounting for 18.4% and 15.4% of turnover. KenGen opened slightly weaker in the morning but gained from mid-session, firming to end of the day 1.1% higher on aggressive local investor buying. Equity Bank, EABL, Barclays Bank and Kenya Power were among the large caps which were losing ground. Most of the other leading gainers and losers were on thin volumes. Whereas liquidity remains good in the market, we think some concern about valuations caused investors to lock-in profits once some uncertainty started to kick in. We see stability starting to develop in the course of next week as the electoral commission receives names of those cleared to vie for the various positions.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.08%, USD 1.35m

Rather pleasing way to end the week from an activity point of view with value traded amounting to USD 1.35m. Foreigners were rather active on the buy side of SBM today (62%) as the counter was quite active with 147k shares traded over the day. MCB was rather quiet with 21k shares changing hands as the counter closed flat at 180.00. There was a fair amount of activity in NMH with 142k shares traded as the couter closed flat at 67.00.

Nigeria: ASI +1.99%, USD 25.35m

The rally in Lagos continued on rather good volume as well with the ASI gaining 1.99%. Consumer stocks were rather impressive today with the likes of Nigerian Breweries gaining 4.97% to close at 158.50 while Cadbury gained 4.93%. Banking stocks put in a good performance to end the week strong with the Bank10 Index gaining 0.74%. The two brewers were very active today and were amongst the biggest contributors towards value traded with the usual suspects Zenith Bank and Guaranty also right up there.

South Africa: Top 40 +0.45%, USD 1.47bn

The JSe ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.45% to close at 35,723 while value traded amounted to USD 1.47bn. Resources were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 1.10% followed by Industrials and Financials which gained 0.26% and 0.11% respectively. The Rand was trading at 8.88 and 11.81 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zambia: LuSE -0.37%, USD 54k

Better day in Lusaka but still rather quiet with value traded amounting to USD 54k. The names that traded included CEC, LAFA, PUMA, ZNCO and ZSUG. LAFA was the biggest contributor towards turnover with value traded in the name amounting to USD 49k. CEC was the second biggest contributor towards turnover with value traded in the name amounting to USD 2.8k.

Zimbabwe: Ind +1.34%, Mining unch, USD 1.53m

The industrial index closed the week firmer recording its 12th sussesive climb as sentiment remains positive in the first month of 2013. The industrial index advanced +1.34% to 165.40pts after the three principals in the unity government finally agreed on contentious issues on the draft constitution which should now pave way for a referendum and ultimately elections. The index was spurred by gains in Econet (+1.96%) that traded 10 c higher at 520c and Delta (+3.91%) upping to 114.30c. Sugar company, Hippo was up +4.17% to trade at 125c.Truworths and Zimpapers were the other top five counters increasing to 2.6c and 1c each putting on 0.10c and 0.20c respectively. Week on week the index is +3.44% stronger. Market turnover rose 29% to $1.98m from yesterday’s $1.53m spurred by foreign participation in Econet and Delta despite a drop in volumes traded to 3m shares. Econet and Delta continued to take the pole position for as foreign investors’ favorites accounting for 59% and 38% of turnover respectively. The mining index remained unchanged closing the week at 73.13pts. Week on week the index mounted 0.88pts or 1.22%. No trades were noted in the resource counters today.

African Currencies