Movers & Shakers: July 19, 2013

Botswana: DSE -0.02%, USD 72k

A desperately quiet day to end the week in Gaborone. Letshego (228t) accounted for more than half the turnover and barely scraps traded in a few other names.

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.14%, USD 4.3m

Equity turnover fell 34.1% during the session with foreign investor participation remaining broadly unchanged at 60% from 61.5% in the previous session. Housing Finance rose 3.8% after the mortgage firm reported a 58.6%y/y jump in 1H13 results. Bamburi notched 0.9% higher on foreign investor buying. Kenya Power eased 0.3% on foreign investor selling while KenGen rose 3.6% on buying. KenolKobil eased 0.6% on foreign investor selling despite oil marketer settling a dispute with the Kenya Petroleum Refinery, allowing the oil marketer to return to the open tender system which allocates fuel to marketers. Total Kenya remained unchanged during the session. Standard Media was the leading loser on thin volumes, shedding 5.2%.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.03%, USD 859k

Another upbeat day in Port Louis in terms of activity while the Sem-7 gained 5bps. Only 2 stocks in the Sem-7 actually moved and both were positive: NMH gained 39bps to Rs65.00 and Terra gained 25bps to Rs40.20.

Nigeria: ASI -0.01%, USD 17.87m

Unfortunately there was not much to report from Lagos today with the dull theme (from an activity point of view) for the week continuing today as value traded amounted to a slow $17.87m. There were unfortunately no decent crosses to report either with the likes of Zenith Bank ($2.77m), Guaranty Trust Bank ($2.56m) and Nigerian Breweries ($1.86m) driving turnover. PZ Cussons was the star performer on the day with the counter gaining +9.48% to close at 48.50 with the Consumer Goods Index closing -0.12% lower thanks to Nigerian Breweries (-1.62%) and Dangote Sugar (-1.85%). Banks also closed the day ever so slightly lower with the Bank 10 Index falling -0.01%.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -1.54%, USD 1.15bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 1.54% to close at 36,029 while value traded amounted to USD 1.15bn. Industrials were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 1.76% followed by Financials and Resources which fell 1.37% and 1.24% respectively. The Rand was trading at 9.86 and 12.96 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zambia: LuSE -0.01%, USD 9k

The Lusaka exchange continues its usual tricks as volumes just dry up more and more. Nothing of any note to report.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +1.2%, Mining unch, USD 3.3m

After succumbing to a 2 day successive loss where the mainstream index surrendered a cumulative 2.59pts or 1.2% the industrials plotted a comeback adding +1.2% to record yet another new high of 227.03pts. This is against the election fever that has hit the economy with just 11 days to go. Leading the comeback were gains in Innscor which added +4% to 110.01c its all time high, bullish BAT which continued scaling new highs firmed +7.85% to 1402c. Also on the rise were OK which added +0.87% to 27.87c after reporting a +5.1% increase in revenue to $123m in their first quarter over the comparable period, earlier today at their AGM. The resources continued stuttering returning their previous close of 66.93 pts with only Hwange registering trades. Another special bargain in National Foods of 689,985 shares after yesterday’s mega Astra deal, failed to prop up volume traded which came down -92% to 7.02m shares with meaningful volumes being exchanged in Barclays which contributed 10% to the aggregate volume. Value trade simultaneously took a swipe faltering -57.9% to $3.3m with 32% attributable to Econet. Foreign aggregates softened with sales easing a minor 1% to 6.24m while purchases suffered a sharp 80.7% decline.

African Currencies