Movers & Shakers: February 20, 2014

Botswana: DCI -0.40%, USD 5k

There really is not much interest in the Botswana bourse these days as the market fell on dire volumes. .

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.66%, USD 172m

Another active day in Cairo as the market continues the bullish momentum. With no major news to the buck the positive trend the market continued on its merry way. Local institutional investors continued to build positions in names such as HRHO, ESRS, and ACGC leaving each to end the day up 2.90%, 0.51%, and 9.32% respectively. Investors continue to show strong appetite in the real estate sector with names such as TMGH, PHDC, and OCDI witnessing above average volumes, as each ended the day up 3.13%, 3.10%, and 1.80% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.43%, USD 11.6m

Turnover improved sharply today mostly on the back of a couple of foreign crosses in Equity Bank, KNCB and Safcom. Outside of these the market remains heavily dominated by local investors. The market was in a generally bullish mood and this was evident in the most active names. Equity Bank and KNCB closed up 80bps and 1.1% at KES 32.25 and KES 44.50 respectively. Safcom was unchanged at KES 11.40 while EABL gained a strong 3.7% at KES 227 and was at net bid for most of the session.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.05%, USD 2.61m

A much better day in Port Louis as value traded amounted to USD 2.61m thanks to a few decent crosses in MCB (-0.12%) as 131k shares traded in the name. There were also a few crosses in the usually illiquid Lux Islands (-1.0%) as 562k shares changed hands. There were two separate crosses of 150k each in Innodis (+3.85%).

Nigeria: ASI -1.47%, USD 30.3m

The news that Sanusi had been suspended by President Jonathan sent shockwaves through the market with the banks taking a huge punishing. After the banks had shown some signs of stability in recent sessions they lost 4.46% today after the news with Tier 1 names particularly hard hit as most names closed at limit down. The sector also saw some chunky volumes in the likes of Zenith (-3.9%, N19.99), GTB (-5%, N24.62) and Access (-95bps, N8.32). The contagion fed through into consumers as they lost 1.79% with NB (-3.23%, N146.61), Guinness (-5%, N171.10) and Dangote Sugar (-4.7%, N10.93) being the laggards. Dangote Cement closed up 81bps at N239.92 on good volume.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -0.58%, USD 1.64bn

The JSE traded lower today as all sectors closed in the red. The Rand was also on the backfoot and was trading at R11.03, R18.39 and R15.14 vs the USD, GBP and EUR respectively at the time of writing.

Zimbabwe: Industrials +0.68%, Mining unch, USD 3.01m

The local buyers came in aggressively in selected names today. Econet rose by 2.58% to 63.6c and is actually up 6% YTD, bucking the trend of most Zimbabwe stocks. Delta inched higher by 17bps to 125c.

African Currencies