Movers & Shakers: January 30, 2014

Botswana: DCI +0.52%, USD 127k

Not much happening in Gaborone. The only stock that really traded was BIHL which closed at 1066t.

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.42%, USD 149m

The market continued its positive move, leaving the EGX30 index to close at 7,405.25pts up 0.42%. Improved volumes were also evident today on a total turnover of USD 149m. Locals dominated the trading activity (80% of mkt) and supported the index being the sole net buyers today. PHDC remained in focus after breaching the 3 level yesterday to last print at 3.09, gaining another 2%. CCAP also saw a technical run after breaching the 4 level and grabbed investor interest to last trade at 4.10, 3.80% higher on the day. Meanwhile, the heavyweight COMI saw mainly local institutional buying, moving the name closer to the 34 level and recording new all time highs at 33.85.

Kenya: NSE 20 -1.09%, USD 15.6m

Activity continues to surprise in Nairobi as value traded amounted to $15.5m as activity was relatively evenly spread between local and foreign investors. Diamond Trust Bank was once again the most active counter as $4.02m worth of shares changed hands (foreign sellers/ local buyers). Safcom continued to slide today as the telco fell -2.95% to close at KES 11.50 on the back of foreign selling (63%). The usually fairly quiet Co-op Bank was rather active as $1.18m worth of shares traded on the back of local buying.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.47%, USD 970k

The Mauritian bourse continues to soften as the Sem-7 fell by 66bps. The losers included MCB (-95bps, Rs208), SBM (-96bps, Rs1.03) and NMH (-1.12%, Rs88) which were partly offset by a gain in ENL Land (+52bps, Rs48.75). Please note that the market will be closed tomorrow for a public holiday.

Nigeria: ASI -0.47%, USD 25.2m

There was finally some respite in the banking sector sell-off as the Bank Index managed to gain +0.25% thanks to rallies in the likes of Zenith (+3.91%) and Diamond Bank (+3.76%) while ETI (-3.10%) continued to come under pressure. Consumers (-1.06%) came under pressure with Nestle (-1.67%), Guinness (-1.74%) and Nigerian Breweries (-1.05%) all dragging the sector lower. Activity picked up today, but was still rather average as value traded amounted to $25.2m with banking stocks driving turnover as Guaranty Trust Bank ($7.80m), Zenith ($2.99m) and ETI ($1.87m) were the most active.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -0.70%, USD 2.49bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 0.70% to close at 40,687 while value traded amounted to USD 2.49bn. Financials were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 1.64% followed by Industrials which fell 1.08% while Resources gained 0.25%. The Rand was trading at 11.14 and 15.11 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.30%, Mining unch, USD 7.68m

Relief came to Harare today as the index finally broke its 12-day losing streak. This was mostly on the back of the rebound in Delta (+84bps, 118c) as the stock was the main cause for the recent weakness. Econet seems to have found a level here at 60c and today’s session saw some huge volumes in the name. A special bargain in Seedco was however the leading contributor to today’s turnover. Foreign activity was also vastly improved.

African Currencies