African Thoughts: August 04, 2016

Nigeria:

It went from bad to worse from an activity point of view in Lagos last week as turnover fell -23.17% to a dire $41.54m as foreign investors remain absent from the market. Unfortunately there weren’t even any decent crosses worth mentioning. The market came under a fair amount of pressure as the ASI fell -2.09% thanks to banking stocks as the sector closed -4.51% lower with losses in ETI (-7.22%), Zenith (-5.20%) and GTB (-3.91%). Consumers were also weaker with the sector falling -2.72% thanks to weakness in 7UP (-9.62%), NB (-3.59%) and Nestle (-3.53%). Unfortunately with the market being so eerily quiet there is nothing to report.

Kenya:

The market came under pressure for the fourth week in a row in Nairobi with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.2% (YTD -13.8%) as foreigners surprisingly remain net buyers ($8.5m net purchases for the week). Activity increased, but still nothing to write home about, with turnover amounting to $38.2m (+37.7% on the previous week). Safcom dominated proceedings and accounted for 33.8% of total value traded with the telco gaining an impressive +3.9% on net foreign purchases of $3.65m and reached an all-time high of KES 21.00. EQBNK was also relatively active and saw net foreign inflows to the tune of $2.2m. There was a large foreign cross in the usually illiquid BATK on Friday as 969k shares changed hands in the name. The rest of the market was rather dull with nothing substantial to report. KNCB released H1 2016 numbers which saw EPS increase +13.6%.

Zimbabwe:

It was a completely dire week from an activity point of view in Harare as turnover fell -78.2% to a paltry $734k. Unfortunately with volumes that low, there is absolutely nothing to report from an activity point of view. The market closed the week slightly higher with the Industrial Index gaining +0.50%, trimming the YTD loss to -13.51%. Market heavyweights Econet (+2.31%) and Delta (+0.38%) closed the week in positive territory.

Mauritius:

It was a very solid week form a performance point of view in Port Louis with the Semdex gaining an impressive +3.31%, putting the market in positive territory for the year (+1.9% YTD). Activity was also decent with turnover amounting to $6.84m with MCBG, SBMH and Alteo dominating proceedings. Banking stocks ended the week mixed with MCBG gaining +0.7% while SBMH closed unchanged. IBL was the main driver behind the market’s performance as the name managed to close +12.1% higher while Alteo (+8.2%) and Rogers (+3.9%) also had good weeks.