Movers & Shakers: July 23, 2013

Botswana: DSE +0.02%, USD 1.05m

A cross in WIL ($1.04m) accounted for 99% of turnover on an otherwise dull day as total value traded amounted to USD 1.05m. Market breadth was exceptionally thin today.

Egypt

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.35%, USD 4.9m

Equity turnover climbed 73.4% with local investors dominating trading accounting for 54% of trades. The NSE 20 index fell by 35bps to 4790.7 points on mild profit taking. Safaricom (-1.4%, KES 7) was the day’s top mover accounting for 36% of volumes with foreign investors providing most of the supply on the counter. Of the other top movers, foreign investors were net buyers in KCB and net sellers in EABL (+0.6%). Local investors actively traded ARM, with selling pressure pulling down the counter 2.9% to KES 68. KenolKobil reversed some of the losses made in the previous session gaining 2.4% to KES 8.65. The oil marketer has been reinstated in the petroleum products supply chain after reaching an out-of-court settlement with Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd (KPRL). Other top gainers were on thin volumes. On the losing end, recently listed real estate firm Home Afrika fell 6.7% to KES 20.75.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.07%, USD 482k

The market just cant seem to get going from an activity point of view with value traed amounting to another rather dissapointing USD 482k. SBM led in terms of turnover as a total of 5.76m shares changed hands in the counter while MCB was very quiet as a mere 7k shares traded. NMH gained 0.38% on paltry volume of 2.6k shares.

Nigeria: ASI -0.54%, USD 27.04m

About 1/3 of today’s activity was in the illiquid stock Transcorp which witnessed a large cross (both sides local) take place in the name. Outside of this, there was a quiet start but activity livened up in the latter part of the session. The banking sector fell by 54bps but the movement wasn’t overly large on any names. As usual, most of the action was in the Tier 1 names with FBNH being the most active. Consumers fell by 1.58% as red dominated the screens in the sector. The biggest losers were PZ (-8.66%, N44.30), Guinness (-3.08%, N252) and NB (-1.94%, N167). Oando saw some chunky action and closed down 43bps at N13.94.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.71%, USD 1.3bn

The JSE was strong today as most sectors closed in the green. At the time of writing the ZAR was trading at R9.75, R12.89 and R14.98 vs the USD, EUR and GBP respectively.

Zambia: LuSE +0.58%, USD 416k

Much better day in Lusaka today with value traded amounting to USD 416k thanks to crosses in SCZ ($149k) and CEC ($138k). There was also some action in ZMFA as 750k shares traded on the day.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.23%, Mining -0.34%, USD 1.45m

Both industrial and mining indices took marginal knocks with the former losing a marginal -0.23% to 227.28pts and the later coming off -0.34% to 66.70pts. The losses were against +33% increases in volume of shares traded to 3.4m and +80% growth in turnover to $1.45m. Foreign purchases were up +179% to $0.64m while sales slumped -96% to $0.013m. Lighting today’s trading session was Afre Corporation name change to First Mutual Holdings to reflect the group’s underlying businesses. Global financial services group Old Mutual weighed on the market after shedding -2.1% to 235c and sellers sticking at 240c. This was against firming global prices of the stocks on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. There was a reversal of recent gains in cement manufacturers Lafarge and clothing retailers Edgars with both sliding -4.2% to 115c and -13.3% to 13c respectively. Willdale currently in negotiations with a potential investor lost -11.8% to 0.3c. Investments group TA dropped -11.1% to 8c on imminent selling. Other fallers were Hunyani which came down -8.6% to 3.2c and Afrisun down -6.7% to 2.10c.

African Currencies