Movers & Shakers: January 28, 2014

Botswana: DCI +0.21%, USD 298k

Another rather quiet day in Gaborone as value traded amounted to USD 298k as Sechaba and BIHL dominated trading.

Egypt: EGX 30 +1.53%, USD 213m

The market managed to pick up its strong bullish momentum leaving the EGX 30 to end the day up 1.53% to close at 7,368.46 points. Market volumes reached a new record high since 2011, as the market traded a total turnover of USD 213m. Some 23% of the total turnover was attributed to one cross in TMGH. After the news that Field Marshal Sisi's would probably be a presidential candidate, shedding more light on the upcoming period, the market witnessed a notable buying wave lead buying accumulations from GCC and local institutions targeting names such as HRHO, ETEL and COMI leaving each to end the day up 3.32%, 1.71% and 1.33% respectively. The real estate sector witnessed strong buying appetite today with names such as AMER, PHDC and TMGH witnessing above average volumes, leaving each to end the day up 3.60%, 2.78% and 1.43% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.35%, USD 10m

Kenya continues to trade actively with foreign participation roughly half of today’s total turnover. Surprsingly, the most traded stock today was Diamond Trust Bank which saw more than $2m change hands at a price of KES 223. EABL and Safcom both fell off thanks to some foreign selling, EABL closing down 1.4% at KES 279 while Safcom shed 2.4% to KES 12.05. Outside of Diamond Trust Bank the sector was quiet today with just some mild activity in Equity Bank (unch, KES 32.75).

Mauritius: Semdex -0.36%, USD 1.95m

The Port Louis bourse continues to trade along at a sprightly rate. Once again MCB was the leading player although the name fell by 1.29% to Rs210 while other losers in the Sem-7 included Alteo (-83bps, Rs36), ENL Land (-51bps, Rs48.75) and Terra (-27bps, Rs37.20). The only gainer was IBL which rose by 23bps to Rs109.75.

Nigeria: ASI -1.11%, USD 31.07m

There was a nice increase in activity in Lagos today as value traded amounted to an impressive $31.07m. Zenith ($6.93m) once again dominated activity followed by Nestle ($3.79m) and First Bank ($4.51m) which all saw significant two-way flow and crosses go through in the respective names. The free fall in banking stocks continued as the Bank Index fell -2.59% with ETI (-4.94%), UBA (-4.26%) and Access (-3.68%) being amongst the hardest hit in the sector. Consumers (-0.58%) also ended lower with UACN (-3.33%) and Nigerian Breweries (-1.34%) being the worst performers.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -0.01%, USD 1.46bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 0.01% to close at 41,085 while value traded amounted to USD 1.46bn. Industrials were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 0.19% followed by Financials which fell 0.02% while Resources gained 0.16%. The Rand was trading at 11.05 and 15.11 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -1.81%, Mining -2.20%, USD 1.05m

Another quiet day in Zimbabwe as the weakness in the broader economy permeates the ZSE. The Industrials index is already down a disappointing 7.1% YTD. Today the ZSE was mostly hurt by further weakness in Delta which lost a further 6% to 116.98c. More pleasingly, Econet remains stable at the 60c level and has seen decent activity going through at this level. Despite a small improvement in foreign participation the overall activity remains thin.

African Currencies