Movers & Shakers: October 05, 2012

African Currencies

Botswana: DCI -0.07%, USD 14k

It was an extremely quiet end to the week in Bots, with only $14k worth trading. There were four gainers and 2 losers. The gainers were Choppies, FSG, Letlole and Stanchart closing at 184t, 138t, 145t and 990t respectively. The two fallers were Primetime and Turnstar, -5t to 190t and -3t to 145t respectively.

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.37%, USD 4.92m

After two rather manic days activity dropped off a tad although still rather robust with value traded amounting to $4.92m. EABL once again dominated in terms of activity as foreigners accounted for 99% of both purchases and sales in the name with a total of 720k shares traded. Equity Bank was rather active thanks to a cross at the end of the session with both the buyer and the seller being foreign as a total of 3.08m shares traded. There was significant foreign interest (97% of purchases) in Safcom as a total of 7.61m shares traded in the counter. Foreigners were net buyers and accounted for $3.77m of total purchases while they accounted for $3.40m of total sales. The market closed the day higher with the NSE 20 Index gaining 0.37% to close at 3,975.79. The government announced that it will introduce new taxes and cut spending to cover the cost of a $300m wage in crease that ended a strike by state teachers, lecturers and doctors.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.02%, USD 1.2m

The mkt ended on a subdued note in Mauritius, $ 1.2m. The bear got the upper hand -0.2% and -0.33% respectively for the Semdex and Sem-7. There were two losers in the SEM-7, MCB and new entrant Bramer banking Corporation. Bramer was the big loser -3.41% while MCB eased -0.61%. The action was centred around a only a few names MCB, NMH and Terra. The lone winner was NMH which jumped +1.82%.

Nigeria: ASI -0.01%, USD 18.61m

Another active day to end the first week of Q4 in Nigeria. Once again, banking was rather active with Access in particular having an extraordinary day. An aggressive seller hit the name down 10% (new limit due to market making) early in the session before the name ticked slightly up throughout the day to eventually close down 6.99% at N8.51. The other banks had a mixed day, with Fidelity (+5.65%, N1.87) the only standout performer. The consumer stocks also continue to see foreign buying interest and some heavy trading activity. NB traded actively and closed up 58bps at N139.85 and touched N140 during the session. In other news, President Jonathan appointed a new Chief of Defense Staff as well as replaced Heads of the country’s Air Force and Navy.

South Africa: Top 40 +1.11%, USD 1.62bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 1.11% to close at 32,361 while value traded amounted to USD 1.62bn. Resources were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 2.53% followed by Industrials which gained 0.87% while Financials fell 1.16%. The Rand was trading at 8.66 and 11.30 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zambia: LuSE -0.04%, USD 68k

Some decent activity with value traded amounting to USD 68k. The names that traded included AELZ, CECZ, FQMZ, LAFA, ZAMBREW, ZMBF and ZSUG. ZAMBREW was the biggest contributor towards turnover with value traded in the name amounting to USD 18k. AELZ was the second biggest contributor towards turnover with value traded in the name amounting to USD 15k.

Zimbabwe: Industrial Index +0.80%, Mining Index -6.15%, USD 585k

The industrial index advanced 0.80% or 1.21 points to close at 151.79points buoyed by gains in Delta, Econet, Innscor, Seedco and Barclays. On a week on week the industrial index is 3.97% up and 4.04% firm on YTD basis. Despite the positive sentiment volumes remain depressed amounting to 4.06m shares being 6% lower than yesterday while turnover dropped 39% to $0.585m. Beverages giant, Delta became the first billion dollar company on the ZSE with a market cap $1.004billion after surging 0.48% to 83.5c. Telcoms giant, ECONET which recently announced that its subscribers had breached the 7m mark rose an impressive 4.42% or 20.1c to 475.1c albeit on thin volumes. The group is expected to release its August interims anytime. INNSCOR was 0.98% was up at 72cents, Barclays rose 7.14% to 3c and SEEDCO added 0.32% to 91.50c. property group Pearl rose 5.7 7% to 2.75c. The mining index lost 6.15% to 87.30 points weighed down by Falgold which eased 28% to 18c. BINDURA traded unchanged at 3c while Hwange and Rio recorded no trades. Week on week the mining index lost 9.06% and is now 13.31% in the red YTD.