Movers & Shakers: October 18, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.01%, USD 2.33m

Chunky crossing in Letshego at the 220t and 221t level dominated the landscape in Gaborone. The name closed at 220t and was almost 100% of the market today. BIHL saw some mild activity and closed at 1050t.

Egypt: Closed for the day.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.60%, USD 5.7m

Activity picked up again in Nairobi thanks to some action in Safcom as $2.25m worth of shares traded in the name with foreigners dominating both sides. Total value traded amounted to $5.7m. EABL was relatively active and managed to close the day on the front foot thanks to foreign demand as the counter gained 1.9% to close at KES 320.00 on $850k worth of shares. It was interesting to see Co-op Bank ($402k) as one of the more active stocks as there was a large cross in the name with the seller being local while ther buyer was foreign.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.07%, USD 21.4m

The turnover today is not a typo – there were 2 crosses on the Crossings Board in Bayport management (Rs383m) and Evisa Investments (Rs241m) that accounted for the bulk of the turnover. In normal trading, NMH rose by 57bps to Rs87.50 while Alteo Limited rose by 14bps to Rs36.35 as the Sem-7 gained 7bps.

Nigeria: ASI +0.23%, USD 30.04m

A large pre-arranged cross in Zenith Bank just after the open got the session off to a lively start. There was also an early cross in FBNH but unfortunately after this the market ground to a halt and the day was very slow. Banks are still in demand and rose by 60bps with Tier 1 names still driving this. UBA (+2.61%, N7.85) and Zenith (+1.99%, N22.06) were the main drivers while among the Tier 2 names we saw Skye Bank rally hard by 5% to N4.62. Consumers were also strong with a lack of sellers distinctly noticeable as the sector grew by 1.67%. Leading stocks were PZ (+3.95%, N39.50), UACN (+3.17%, N65), Cadbury (+3.64%, N57) and Dangote Sugar (+4.42%, N11.80).

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.27%, USD 1.52bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.27% to close at 39,894 while value traded amounted to USD 1.52bn. Financials were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 1.13% followed by Resources and Industrials which gianed 0.27% and 0.12% respectively. The Rand was trading at 9.75 and 13.36 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.72%, Mining +3.53%, USD 680k

The industrials bullish trend came to a halt today as it shed -0.72% to 213.36pts snapping a 24 day streak of gains. This comes as demand at current levels has been slowly waning after a rally in most top stocks. Notable losers were telecoms’s Econet which softened -2.93% to 63c while brewers Delta followed shedding -1.76% to close at 137.50 . Conglomerate Innscor eased -1.11% to close 89c as reports stated they had completed restructuring its grocery outlet Spar which should pave way for a demeger and separate listing on the domestic bourse. The mining index however continued from yestrdays trades advancing +3.53% to 51.81pts largely sustained by the recovery in Bindura which closed firmer at 2c. Value traded took a dip shedding -8.52% to $0.68m while foreign participation was subdued with buys down -74.09% to $0.144m and sellers -18.90% lower at $0.080m.

African Currencies