African Thoughts: December 01, 2014

Nigeria:

It was a much better week in terms of activity in Lagos as turnover increased 92% to $157.9m while the ASI managed to close in positive territory and gained +1.82%. The highlight of the week in terms of activity was a number of very large crosses in Zenith Bank while we also saw some substantial blocks in FBNH and UBA. Banks had a very solid week with the sector gaining +3.09% thanks to good gains in UBA (+17.39%), Diamond Bank (+12.73%), GTB (+6.84%) and FBNH (+6.76%). Consumers finally managed to find some support as the Index gained +2.45% with some strength in Flour Mills (+21.20%), Dangote Sugar (+19.76%) and NB (+9.28%). The Central Bank of Nigeria devalued the Naira and raised MPR by 100bps to 13% as it sought to stem losses to its foreign reserves hit by weaker oil prices.

Kenya:

After two straight weeks of gains the market closed in negative territory with the NSE 20 Index falling -0.2%. On a positive note, turnover increased +5.9% to $45.5m as we saw an increase in foreign participation (55.7%) as net inflows were the highest in 15 weeks and totaled $12.7m. KNCB saw the highest net inflows of $5.2m and as such managed to gain +2.7% while we also saw some foreign interest return to EQBNK as the name finally started to rally and gained +3.6%. Safcom and EABL also had solid weeks from a performance point of view as the counters gained +1.5% and +2.7% respectively. On the other end of the scale we saw Uchumi and Britam come under pressure with the names falling -5.2% and -2.8% respectively.

Zimbabwe:

Activity dropped 15.8% in Harare last week but it was still fairly active as turnover amounted to $11.15m while the market finally managed to close in positive territory with the Industrial Index gaining +0.56%, trimming the YTD loss to -15.17%. Market turnover was dominated by crosses in the likes of Delta (34%), Innscor (20%), Econet (11%) and CBZ (10%). Foreigners accounted for $7.48m of total sales while they accounted for $4.77m of total purchases. Gains were driven by Hippo and Delta as the names gained +5.26% and 2.73% respectively.

Mauritius:

Things slowed down in Port Louis last week but it was still rather active as turnover fell -16% to $13m with foreigners being net sellers while the Semdex managed to close in positive territory and gained +0.2%. Large crosses in MCBG (+0.5%) and SBMH (-1.0%) dominated proceedings as the heavyweights accounted for 66% of total value traded. Hotel stocks ended the week mixed as NMH fell -0.2% while LUX and SUN gained +7.1% and +0.9% respectively.