Movers & Shakers: October 03, 2013

Botswana: DCI -0.03%, USD 17.7m

A large cross in Choppies dominated the day today in Gaborone. The cross took place at 305t while some others names like Sechaba (1805t), Turnstar (170t), Barclays (569t) and BIHL (1059t) also saw some reasonable action.

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.57%, USD 52m

The market traded with a mixed sentiment today to end the day in slightly higher, leaving the EGX30 to end the day up 0.57% to close 5,319.90 points. The market traded weak volumes relative to recent market turnovers, the market traded a total turnover of EGP363m. The market witnessed a slow session with most med/small caps dominating the trading session, the day with a negative sentiment with local retail as net sellers to contunie with there profit booking sentiment perusing the market to reach a low of 5,667.19 points, yet after med-session local and international institutions managed to support the market to be net buyers changing the market sentiment to trade in the greens, targeting names such as JUFO, PHDC and TMGH each ending the up 1.77%, 1.70% and 1.39% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.16%, USD 9.0m

Another very active session in Nairobi as value traded amounted to $9.0m as a number of the blue chip names were rather active. Some late action in Safcom boosted activity as there were a few aggressive foreign buyers in the telco with the counter gaining 1.7% on 16.36m shares. Activity in EABL was steady througout the day with good two-way flow as a total of 372k shares traded with foreigners dominating both sides of the name. There was solid foreign demand in Nation Media Group which helped boost both activity and performance in the counter as it gained 2.8% to close at KES 329 on 220k shares.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.04%, USD 2.55m

More activity in the normally illiquid PBL spiked up volumes today in Port Louis. The Sem-7 also saw some decent activity with the banks again attracting most of the action – MCB closing up 13bps at Rs194.25 while SBM closed unchanged at Rs1.01.

Nigeria: ASI +0.97%, USD 30.60m

The day was again pretty active with a number of crosses again dominating the session. Local selling and foreign buying was again very much evident. Banks were mixed and no discernible trend was in evidence. The best performer was GTB which closed up 1.18% at N25.70 on good volume. Zenith witnessed a number of bookovers and crosses and closed up 5bps at N20.01 on good volumes. In the consumers, a late sell-off in Guinness (-4%, N256.04) hurt the name although the sell-off was in very small volume. NB continues to grind higher and gained 83bps to N169.40. Dangote Cement saw an early cross go through at N190 which is where the stock closed (unchanged).

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.02%, USD 1.58bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.02% to close at 39,370 while value traded amounted to USD 1.58bn. Financials were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 0.86% followed by Industrials which gained 0.19% while Resources fell 0.76%. The Rand was trading at 10.06 and 13.71 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +1.02%, Mining +0.48%, USD 4.2m

Selective demand in the market heavies spurred ZSE gains in Thursday trades as activity increased across the board resulting in 28 active stocks compared to 25 from yesterday. Highlighting the session was a special bargain in Econet of 4.5m shares at the day’s closing price of 61.96c , while in normal trades just over 1m shares exchanged hands effectively making the telecoms group the most liquid stock for the day. Value traded however fell -20% to $4.2m while volumes were down -97% at 9.14m shares as activity was subdued in penny stocks. Industrials notched their 13th successive gain putting on +1.02% to 205.44pts while the mining index closed +0.48% to the good at 50.53c on a spate of activity spurred by a surprise supply of Hwange shares. Sixteen of the active stocks registered movements today with gainers dominating at a count of nine against seven fallers. Leading the charge was investment holding group TA that closed at 7c on a +40% rebound. Coal miners Hwange firmed +5.1% to 10.51c on active bidding while cigarette manufacturers BAT added +3.85% to 1350c. Completing the top gains for the day were the duo of TSL and ZBFH that posted identical +3.33% gains and closed at 31c and 15.5c respectively.

African Currencies