Movers & Shakers: October 10, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.05%, USD 41k

A non-event today in Botswana as nothing of any consequence happened. Scraps in ABCH (505t) and Stanchart (1160t) were about the only excitement while market favourites Choppies and Letshego traded at 305t and 218t respectively on very small volumes.

Egypt: EGX 30 +2.23%, USD 90m

The market managed to continue with its bullish sentiment leaving the EGX30 to end the day up 2.23% to close at 5,931.70 points. The market traded improved volumes compared to average turnover, the market traded a total turnover of USD 90m. the market managed to pick up some bullish sentiment on strong momentum lead institutional investors buying( local and international) targeting names such as GTHE, COMI and HRHO leaving to each to end the day up 2.26%,1.75% and 2.75% respectively, yet local GCC investors along with local retail investors continue to be net sellers in the market, targeting names such as APSW and ACGC each ending the day down 0.29% and 0.20% respectively. It’s worth mentioning that the real-estate sector managed to continue to gain investors interest for the second consecutive day, were names such TMGH, HELI and PHDC witnessed above average volumes leaving each to end the day up 4.03%, 3.37% and 0.83% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.02%, USD 7.1m

Profit taking continued in Safcom today as the telco fell -1.1% to close at KES 9.00 while the counter was the biggest contributor towards turnover as $4.11m worth of stock changed hands with total value traded in the market amounting to $7.1m. There was also some profit taking in EABL as the counter fell -1.7% with foreigners accounting for 97% of purchases. Equity Bank managed to find some suuport after some recent profit taking with the name closing at KES36.25 as 1.90m shares traded over the day.

Mauritius: Semdex unch, USD 1.7m

Chunky action in PBL again the most activity for the session. PBL closed unchanged at Rs190. In the Sem-7, NMH increased by 30bps to Rs82.25 and Alteo gained 14bps to Rs36.15. The banks were unchanged at Rs195.75 and Rs1.01 for MCB and SBM respectively.

Nigeria: ASI -0.80%, USD 13.03m

Another extremely quiet session in Nigeria as an absence of buyers meant that the index just trickled slowly south throughout the day. Performance in the banking and consumer sectors were mixed with neither sector moving with conviction in any direction. Within each sector performance was also mixed. Some banks were up strongly like UBA (+2.7%, N7.60) while some sold off like Zenith (-1.65%, N20.82) although none of the moves had any conviction and were on rather thin volumes. Consumers were also quiet with just Nestle (unch, N1,001.01) and NB (-6bps, N169.90) seeing any reasonable activity. The illiquid Transcorp saw some chunky crossing again and closed up 4.91% at N1.71.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +1.33%, USD 1.28bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 1.33% to close at 38,614 while value traded amounted to USD 1.28bn. Financials were the day's top gainers with the Index gaining 1.65% followed by Resources and Industrials which gained 1.39% and 1.06% respectively. The Rand was trading at 9.91 and 13.42 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.57%, Mining -1.49%, USD 710k.

Industrials strengthened in a rather quiet session with a trading pattern of 3 risers, 8 lossers and 19 unchanged. Industrials gained +0.57% to 211.44pts with Delta driving the market with its +2.9% surge to 140c on constricted supply. Other gains were in small caps with highly speculative Medtech registering +25% rise to 0.05c and contributing 83% of today’s 27m volume traded. Sugar processors Star Africa reported to have identified potential suitors for its 33.3% stake in Tongaat Hulett Botswana (THB) with proceeds to be used to settle creditors and financiers leaped +6.5% to 1.32c. Activity dropped-off with value traded amounting to USD 710k.

African Currencies