Movers & Shakers: November 05, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.13%, USD 2.66m

A large cross in Letshego (9m shares) accounted for 89% of turnover as total value traded amounted to USD 2.66m. Apart from Letshego, there was a small bit of activity in Barclays (371k shares).

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.20%, USD 5.7m

Things slowed down in Nairobi today as value traded amounted to $5.7m on the back of a fall in foreign participation (47%). Safcom was the day's most active counter as 16.22m shares changed hands with the name closing -0.5% lower at KES 9.65. The teleco announced it's H1 2014 performance figures after the session, posting a 47.4% y/y growth in EPS to KES 0.28. There was strong foreign investor demand in Centum today as 2m shares changed hands in the normally illiquid name. Equity Bank seemed to stabilize after reporting worse than expected numbers yesterday with the counter closing unchanged at KES 34.75. Athi River Mining reported Q3 2013 results early in the session with the name gaining 1.86% on the day.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.35%, USD 1.34m

The bulk of todays activity took place in the normally illiquid stock Innodis (+1.98%, Rs51.50). In the Sem-7, the big banks both rose, MCB rose by 50bps and SBM by 99bps to Rs202 and Rs1.02 respectively.

Nigeria: ASI +0.31%, USD 17.4m

It was a very dull session in Lagos today with activity only picking up in the last 30 minutes of trade as value traded amounted to $17.4m. A large cross in Nestle just before the close helped boost turnover as $2.32m worth of shares changed hands. Top-tier banks in the form of ETI ($1.83m) and Guaranty Trust Bank ($1.80m) also drove activity while a few crosses in Nigerian Breweries ($1.76m) helped out. The Banking sector (+0.02%) closed slightly higher with good performances in the likes of Zenith Bank (+1.83%) and Diamond Bank (+1.31%) leading the sector higher. Consumers (+0.39%) closed the day stronger thanks to Nestle (+2.09%) which continues to perform exceptionally well.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.16%, USD 1.24bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.16% to close at 40,929 while value traded amounted to USD 1.24bn. Resources were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 2.16% while Financials and Industrials fell 0.84% and 0.47% respectively. The Rand was trading at 10.26 and 13.78 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.02%, Mining +0.78%, USD 3.36m

Heavy trading in telecoms group Econet saw a block worth $3m after 4.8m shares exchanged hands at 63c giving the value traded a 59.75% boost to $3.36m. This saw Econet accounting for 91% of the value traded while conglomerate Innscor was a distant second with 2% of the aggregate value. Demand in the counter was largely catalyzed by the groups decent perfomance as it endevoures to continue to broaden its scope by diversifying income streams. Meanwhile industrials marginaly moved upwards by 0.02% to 210.27 pts largely driven by financial services group Old Mutual which advanced +0.43% to close at 257.1c. Simialarly, Minings advanced +0.78% to 50.23pts driven by nickel miners RioZim which was 5% firmer to close at 31.50c

African Currencies