Movers & Shakers: January 27, 2014

Botswana: DCI +0.31%, USD 139k

Nothing much on the go in Gaborone except for some aggressive buying in smalls in Choppies (420t) while Letshego closed at 241t.

Egypt: EGX 30 +0.55%, USD 101m

The market traded the day with a mixed sentiment leaving the EGX30 to end the day up 0.55% to close at 7,257.27 points. The market continues to trade healthy volumes, with a total turnover of USD 101m. The market started the day with negative sentiment and international and GCC institutions as net-sellers pressuring the EGX30 to reach a low of 7,184.57. In the last hour of trading, the EGX bounced back on speculative buying and optimism that general Abdel Fatah El-Sisi would be promoted to Field Marshal as a step toward his of presidential. Local institutions stepped in as notable buyers along with local retail investors targeting names such as ESRS, AMER, and GTHE leaving each to end the day up 1.80%, 4.72% and 1.36% respectively.

Kenya: NSE 20 -0.26%, USD 15.1m

A massive day in volumes in Nairobi although the bulk of the action was by local investors. Safcom lost 1.1% to KES 12.35 on some rather large volumes while KCB closed marginally up at KES 46.00 also on good volumes. Both of these stocks were dominated by foreign selling yet local buying. Some more illiquid names saw some action with Diamond Trust Bank and Co-op Bank both rather active. EABL dropped marginally to KES 283.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.10%, USD 4.7m

A big cross in the little traded Gamma Civic accounted for almost half of todays action. MCB was also active and closed down 47bps at Rs212.75. Elsewhere in the Sem-7 we saw gains in NMH (+56bps, Rs90) and IBL (+92bps, Rs109.50) while Terra fell by 53bps to Rs37.30.

Nigeria: ASI -0.64%, USD 23.8m

It was a rather average start to the week from an activity point of view in Lagos as value traded amounted to $23.8m. Zenith ($4.48m), ETI ($2.77m) and Guaranty Trust Bank ($1.92m) drove activity. Banks were once again under the hammer as the Bank Index fell -2.95% with UBA (-4.94%), Zenith (-4.88%) and Access (-3.55%) dragging the sector lower. Consumers (-0.48%) also closed slightly lower with Nestle (-1.19%) and Flour Mills (-1.10%) being amongst the worst performers.

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

South Africa: Top 40 -1.55%, USD 1.55bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 1.55% to close at 41,090 while value traded amounted to USD 1.55bn. Industrials were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 1.77% followed by Resources and Financials which fell 0.44% and 1.00% respectively. The Rand was trading at 11.16 and 15.26 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -1.52%, Mining unch, USD 1.04m

The ZSE remains firmly on the back foot mirroring the entire Zimbabwe economy which showed poor revenue figures for Q4. Delta continues to be a big drag on the main board as it lost a further 1.52% to 124.5c while OK Zim fell by 2.49% to 20c on decent volumes. Econet traded unchanged at 60c. Overall volumes were much lighter than normal while foreign participation was drastically reduced.

African Currencies