African Thoughts: November 30, 2015

Nigeria:

It was a better week in terms of activity in Lagos, but still nothing to write home about as turnover increased +76% to $63.63m with a few crosses in select names driving proceedings. The market continued to come under pressure with the ASI falling -1.83%, taking the YTD loss to -20.31%. Banks were the major drag on the market as the sector fell -4.25% after the CBN reduced the MPR from 13% to 11% and cut the CRR to 20%. In terms of individual stocks in the banking sector, Diamond Bank (-7.06%), Zenith (-6.67%) and Stanbic (-6.67%) came under pressure. Consumers closed the week slightly lower with the Index falling -0.20% with losses in Guinness (-4.09%) and Nestle (-0.86%).

Nigeria:

It was a very slow week in Nairobi as turnover fell -43% to $20m as trading in the bigger names slowed down in the absence of any significant blocks. EABL was the most active counter last week, but did record the highest net foreign outflows of $2.5m. Safcom (-7.8%) on the other hand recorded the highest net foreign outflows to the tune of $459k. The market closed marginally higher with the NSE 20 Index gaining +0.05%. Foreign investors recorded net outflows ($6.1m) for the fifth consecutive week, but they did remain dominant and accounted for 63% of activity as locals continue to sit on the sidelines for the most part. It is however worth noting that we are starting to see a return of some local interest in select stocks.

Zimbabwe:

Another week, another disappointment in Harare as the market continues to come under pressure with the Industrial Index falling -2.43%, taking the YTD loss to 27.74%, now at levels last seen in 2009. The heavyweights continue to come under pressure with SeedCo (-7.38%), ECO (-6.98%) and Delta (-5.28%) being amongst the worst performers. It was another slow week in terms of activity as turnover increased +18.58% to $1.7m with some small action in Delta and Econet. The 2016 fiscal policy was unveiled last week with the budget being pegged at $4bn with a paltry $0.315bn being assigned to the development budget.

Mauritius:

The market managed to close slightly higher in Port Louis with the Semdex gaining +0.4%, trimming the YTD loss to -12.1%. Banking stocks were the main drivers behind the market's performance with SBMH gaining +5.5% while MCBG gained +1.2%. Hoteliers on the other hands came under pressure with NMH (-1.4%), LUX (-1.4%) and SUN (-2.9%) all closing lower. It was a very quiet week in terms of activity with total value traded amounting to $2.8m as most of the activity was geared towards MCBG and SBMH.