Movers & Shakers: November 04, 2013

Botswana: DCI -0.03%, USD 901k

Decent activity in FNBB (385t) and BIHL (1055t) were the main drivers in today’s session. We also saw decent activity in Sefalana (641t), Stanchart (1160t) and Sechaba (1806t).

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.57%, USD 71m

The market managed to end the day stronger, leaving the EGX30 index to close at 6,222.40 (+0.57%). Volumes remained with in recent average with a total turnover of USD 71m. Locals continued their buying spree despite of fears from ousted president Morsi supporters protests as he headed to court for his first trial which was later postponed to Jan 8th 2014. International investors took advantage of this buying momentum and reverted to profit-booking to end the day as net sellers.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.51%, USD 9.3m

Very solid start to the week from an activity point of view as value traded amounted to $9.3m on the back of some crossing action in EABL ($2.13m) as foreigners dominated activity in the brewer. Equity Bank released Q3 2013 results which seemed to dissapoint the market as the name fell -2.8% on 4.79m shares as foreigners accounted for the bulk of the purchases. Safcom reached an all-time high of KES 9.90 ahead of the telco's H1 2014 results due out tomorrow, but then fell towards the end of the session to close at KES 9.70 (+1.6%). Britam edged up 1.4% to KES 10.80, on the back of strong foreign investor demand. The insurer is set to benefit from the strong performance of the stock market YTD, with approximately 40% of its investment portfolio being in quoted equity.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.34%, USD 360k

On the back of small turnover the Mauritian bourse fell today. The big banks led the way down with MCB and SBM closing down 1.11% and 0.98% at Rs201 and Rs1.01 respectively. Terra was also a big loser as the name fell by 1.2% to Rs41. The only gainer was NMH which continues to gain strong momentum as it rose by 1.1% to Rs92.00.

Nigeria: ASI +0.45%, USD 21.27m

The strong foreign buying in the banks (+62bps) and consumers (+88bps) continue to drive the Lagos bourse outperformance. In fact, all sub-sectors closed the session in the green. Once again the session was relatively quiet punctuated with the odd cross. Banks were the most active sector with some decent activity in Stanbic (+1.16%, N19.22), GTB (+1.93%, N26.40) and Zenith (unch, N21.30). The consumers were also strong with Nestle the main determinant of this as the name closed up net bid at N1185.19 (+5%). NB saw some chunky trades yet closed the day marginally down at N175.20.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.33%, USD 925m

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.33% to close at 40,863 while value traded amounted to USD 925m. Resources were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 0.43% followed by Industrials which gained 0.34% while Financials fell 0.14%. The Rand was trading at 10.14 and 13.70 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.18%, Mining -0.89%, USD 2.1m

Econet was firm for the third consecutive day rising +3.1% to 63c largely contributing to the industrials +0.18% increase to 210.23pts. The telecoms giant gains are on the back of sustainable demand following the recent release of decent interims with 11% revenue growth to $376.6m. The company is also reported to be on the verge of concluding negotiations with Cell Insurance to underwrite its new insurance product as it continues to grow its value-added products. Minings lost -0.89% to 49.84pts as result of Bindura’s 1.9c offer lower that 1.95c last traded price. Econet was the top traded stock contributing 56% of the 4.83m of the day’s volumes and 74% of the $2.1m turnover.

African Currencies