Movers & Shakers: September 09, 2013

Botswana: DCI -0.10%, USD 6.15m

Another active day in Gaborone as crosses in Sechaba (1.3m shares) and Turnstar (16.4m shares) accounted for 97% of turnover with value traded amounting to USD 6.15m.

Egypt: EGX 30 +1.14%, USD 53m

The market started the day with a negative sentiment to reach a low of 5172.84 points, yet after 30 min of trading the market started to trade in the greens by session end the market witnessed notable buying leaving the EGX30 to end the day up 1.14% to close at 5,245.13 points. The market traded the day with slim volumes yet in the last 60 min the market witnessed a strong increase in volumes to end the day with a total turnover of USD 53m, its worth mentioning that its worth mentioning that more than 20% of the volumes was attributed to OCIC alone as this come after news that OCIC will open the swap and cash option for the MTO for the remaining minority shareholder, which could be a great chance for investors to get there cash out of Egypt with the current shortage in USD. The market started the day with a static sentiment with barley any significant movers, yet in the last 60min notable buying is evident in the market and across major blue-chips such as COMI(+1.74%) EFIC(+4.34%) and ETEL(+1.55%).

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.30%, USD 5.6m

Very solid start to the week in Nairobi as value traded amounted to $5.6m as Equity Bank ($2.11m) drove the charge from an activity point of view with foreigners still net sellers in the name. Safcom rallied hard today with the counter gaining 2.5% as foreigners were aggressive buyers in the telco ahead of the ex-dividend date on Friday. Investors were also upbeat at the prospect that Vodafone might focus a lot more on Africa, after it's exit from Verizon Wireless. Bamburi and ARM Cement were slightly weaker on thin volumes as Aliko Dangote announced plans for a $400m cement plant in Kenya.

Mauritius: Semdex +0.20%, USD 3.01m

Another monster cross of 75m SBM at Rs1.04 got things off to a good start in Port Louis today as total value traded amounted to USD 3.01m. MCB on the other hand was exceptionally dead as only a paltry 482 shares traded in the name as both banking heavyweights closed the day unchanged. Tomorrow will be a public holiday in Mauritius and the market will therefore be closed.

Nigeria: NSE 20 -0.08%, USD 24.26m

A few large crosses in WAPCO throughout the day got the week off to a very good start as turnover in the name ($11.28m) accounted for 46% of today's activity with total value traded amounting to $24.26m. There was also some good two-way flow in Guranty Trust Bank (+0.84%) with 23.32m shares traded in the name. Nestle was also amongst the more active stocks today with a total of 307k shares traded over the day. PZ Cussons (-1.89%) and UACN (-1.79%) dragged the consumer goods sector (-0.46%) lower. Banks (+0.22%) on the other hand managed to close in positive territory with tier-two name Skye Bank (+4.29%) leading the charge higher. The market remains very much a block driven market at the moment.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -0.30%, USD 1.20bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 0.30% to close at 38,306 while value traded amounted to USD 1.20bn. Industrials were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 0.34% followed by Financials and Resources which fell 0.13% and 0.05% respectively. The Rand was trading at 9.98 and 13.24 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +1.68%, Mining unch, USD 924k

The mainstream index sustained the fine run consolidating its gains adding 3.06 points or 1.68% to close at 184.82 points. Day on day gains were solely attributable to market heavy weights Delta, Innscor and telecoms giant Econet which were the only three 3 counters to trade higher compared to only 2 counters that lost ground in a session where 57 trades sailed through against the previous session’s 70 trades. Delta topped the risers recovering +6.91c to close at 120.01c with with a firm bid at 120c, after weeks of unrelenting selling which simultaneously shrunk its value by about 30% as sellers mainly foreign, became risk averse. Value traded amounted to USD 924k.

African Currencies