Movers & Shakers: January 22, 2014

Botswana: DCI +0.49%, USD 2.1m

Decent crosses in Letshego (240t), Sechaba (200t) and FNBB (422t) helped volumes in Gaborone to a respectable level.

Egypt: EGX 30 +1.31%, USD 114m

The market managed to continue with its positive momentum lead by notable institutional buying (international and GCC) leaving the EGX30 to end the day up 1.31% to close at 7,179.54 points. Market volumes improved relative to recent market turnovers, as the market traded a total turnover of EGP800 million. The market traded with a bullish momentum lead by notable buying from international and GCC institutions targeting names such as COMI, ETEL, and PHDC leaving each to end the day up 1.63%, 0.90% and 2.90% respectively. Local retail along with local institutions ended the day as net sellers.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.34%, USD 6.9m

Overall activity fell off somewhat despite a pick-up in activity by foreign participants. Heavy foreign selling in Equity Bank reversed yesterday’s gains in the bank as the name lost 1.5% to KES 32.50 while KNCB closed unchanged at KES 45.50. EABL was the second most active stock yet the name still fell off by 30bps to KES 285. Safcom found some strong and aggressive buyers who pushed the name higher by 2.1% to an eventual close at KES 12.00.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.12%, USD 2.06m

Another active day of trading in Port Louis with MCB leading the charts. The banking giant shed another 70bps ro Rs214 while in the rest of the Sem-7 there were 2 gainers, Alteo which rose by 56bps to Rs36.20 and IBL which gained 46bps to Rs108.50.

Nigeria: ASI -1.10%, USD 21.06m

Banks took a serious beating today with the Bank Index falling -2.98% after the MPC decided to increase the CRR to 75% yesterday. Skye Bank (-9.09%), First Bank (-6.21%) and Access (-4.04%) were amongst the worst performers. Activity was on the light side as value traded amounted to $21.06m with Zenith ($3.17m), First Bank ($2.16m), Guaranty Trust Bank ($2.13m) and Nestle ($2.11m) being amongst the most active. Consumers (-0.87%) also ended the day lower with Dangote Sugar (-3.02%) and Dangote Flour (-2.56%) coming under the most pressure.

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

South Africa: Top 40 +0.16%, USD 1.10bn

The JSE ended the day higher with the Top 40 Index gaining 0.16% to close at 42,262 while value traded amounted to USD 1.10bn. Financials were the day's biggest gainers with the Index gaining 0.47% followed by Resources and Industrials which gained 0.22% and 0.09% respectively. The Rand was trading at 10.86 and 14.74 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.93%, Mining -3.86%, USD 1.80m

Bearish sentiment persisted on the ZSE with a 7th successive losing session as industrials came off 0.9% to close at 198.98 pts. Today’s shave effectively placed the industrials below the psychological 200 pts and at year to date loss of 1.55%. on the turn of the new year the index realized a sluggish growth before which came marginally short of a percentage point gain before establishing a much pronounced bearish trend. In today’s session, the three top capitalized stocks Delta, Innscor and Old Mutual all came off in proportions of -2.91%, -2.37% and -2.03% respectively to 130.01c, 88c and 240.01c. Despite a bleak outlook for the year relative to 2013 the current trend that has its roots in Delta’s Q3 trading update released last week where managenement lamented constrained demand and an unfavourable volumes mix on its products that resulted in softening of overall turnover.

African Currencies