African Market Watch: Friday, 20th February 2015

Nigeria: The Nigerian bourse extended its gaining streak today for the fifth consecutive day despite profit taking by short term investors. Today’s gain was sustained on the back of price appreciation in banking equities – Guaranty (0.8%), FBNH (0.4%) and UBA (0.3%). As a result, the NSE-ASI appreciated 35bps to close at 29,383.93 moderating YTD loss to15.2%.  Likewise, the market capitalization added N34.0bn to close at N9.8tn. However, trading activities measured by market volume and value closed mixed as volume dipped 50.8% (277.8m units) while value appreciated 7.9% to settle at N6.6bn. Most sector indices sustained their winning streak save for the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices. The Banking equities were the most patronized, lifting the index by 1.9%, to top the sector indices.  The Oil & Gas followed with a gain of 0.4%, linked to sustained rally in Seplat. The Insurance index dipped the most (1.1%) premised on sell-off in Mansard (0.1%). Market sentiment measured by Advancers/Decliners ratio remain positive at 1.9x (27 stocks advanced against 14 decliners). At close of trading, Ashaka Cement (10.2%), Presco (10.1%) and May & Baker (9.9%) topped the gainers’ chart while Cadbury (9.7%), Transcorp (7.9%) and Champion Breweries (6.5%) led the losers’ chart. The decreasing rate in the positive momentum suggests the stock market may close in red at the next trading session premised on sell-offs from short term investors.

Mauritius: Indices closed today’s session in positive territory. The Semdex gained 0.4% to 2001.30 points and the Sem-10 rose by 0.42% to 376.67 points. Overall turnover on the market amounted to Rs113.0mn, mainly geared towards MCB Group Limited (MCBG), New Mauritius Hotels Ltd (NMH) and Terra Mauricia Ltd (Terra) which accounted for 70.0% of total value traded. MCBG gained 0.4% to Rs 202.00 on total volume of 171.8k shares exchanged. However, VWAP stood at Rs 201.30 indicating that the stock traded mostly at Rs 201.25. SBM Holdings Ltd (SBMH) traded between low of Rs 1.00 and high of Rs 1.01 before closing at that level (+1.0%). The stock saw 11.9m shares traded mostly at Rs 1.01 as highlighted by VWAP which stood at Rs 1.0100. Bramer Banking Corporation Ltd (BBC) lost 1.1% to Rs 5.50 on 115.5k shares traded. CFS gained 0.4% to Rs 9.24 on total volume of 106.1k shares, among which a cross of 100.0k shares at Rs 9.20. Innodis was the only mover on the commerce counter, gaining 0.5% to Rs 56.00 on only 400 shares. Go Life was the top performer of the session, gaining 25.0% to USD 0.05 on 181.0k shares traded. NMH was the only decliner among hotels, losing 0.4% to Rs 68.75 with 424.9k shares exchanged, among which 350.2k shares were crossed at Rs 69.00. LUX gained 0.5% to Rs 55.25 on 5.2k shares (VWAP Rs 55.04). Air Mauritius stumbled by 6.4% to Rs 14.00 on 1.6k shares. Lottotech recouped recent losses to close at Rs 9.00 (+15.7%), after the board announced that the fundamentals of Lottotech’s business and business plan remain good despite recent speculative articles in the press. Rogers and CIEL were the top performers on the investment counter, gaining 1.7% and 0.3% respectively. Terra saw a cross of 500.0k shares flat at Rs 30.30. Decliners on the counter were Fincorp (-1.7%) and PAD (-0.3%).

South Africa: The JSE All Share closed higher by 0.38%, with gains in resources and other sectors offsetting losses in gold miners and financial shares. Share prices on the JSE were flirting with a new record again in early trade on Friday, before buying interest cooled off with major indices in the red for most of the morning. However, in early afternoon trade the intraday graph turned upwards again and the All-share index was again within striking distance of the all-time high of 52 996 points set earlier in the week. At that stage it was only 0.01% higher at 52 841 points, while the Top 40-index was only 0.02% lower at 46 707 points. Of the major indices the Resources index recovered somewhat by 0.88% after losses over the previous two days, but the Financial index (-0.77%), the Industrial index (-0.29%) and the Gold index (-2.63%) were all lower. On the top ten gainers list today was Stefanutti Stocks (SSK) whose shares climbed 8.92% to R5.25 after 238 deals traded 3,516,906 shares. Also rising 6.94% was Pinnacle Holdings (PNC), after investors exchanged 679,287 shares in 308 deals and sent the share price up to R11.55 by 5pm. DRD Gold (DRD) slid 2.78% after 276 deals saw the trade of 1,583,134 shares, pushing the share price down to R2.45. After 378 deals totalling 779,333 shares, Grindrod (GND) fell 3.74% to R19.06 a share by close of day.

Tanzania: the DSE recorded a total turnover of TZS 22,411.09 mln from 1,553,297 shares traded in 90 deals compared to the previous session which recorded a turnover of TZS 342.07 mln from 71,944 shares traded in 62 deals. The DSEI gained 0.75 percent to close the day’s trading at 2,774.19, as the DSE TSI lost 0.07 percent to close at 4,999.35. Furthermore, the Commercial Services sector index gained 0.14 percent, and industrial & allied sector index rose by 0.06 percent. But the Banks, Finance & Investment sector plummeted by 0.36 percent. The DSE recorded a total turnover of TZS 24,309.68 mln from 1,788,129 shares traded in 68 deals compared to the previous session which recorded a turnover of TZS 19,366.74 mln from 1,658,054 shares traded in 82 deals. On Pre-Arranged board, Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) counter had 1,606,246 shares traded at TZS 14,500 per share in 3 deals. Likewise, CRDB Bank counter had 20,353 shares traded at weighted average price of TZS 475 per share in 15 deals.

Zambia: The Lusaka Stock Exchange All Share Index closed at 6,192.23 points up by 0.13% in comparison to the previous close of 6,184.32 points. A price change was recorded in CEC-K0.02 .Trading was also recorded in ZAMBREW and ZSUG. A total of 15,883 shares were traded in 4 trades resulting in a total turnover of K31,559. The market capitalization was recorded at K66, 744,000,000, including Shoprite Holdings Plc, and K31,505,000,000 excluding Shoprite Holdings Plc.

Zimbabwe: he Industrial index dropped 0.42 points (0.25%) to close at 168.13 points and the Mining index went down 0.47 points (0.99%) to close at 47.09 points. TSL (TSL.zw) retreated by 1.50 cents to trade at 25 cents and OK ZIMBABWE (OKZ.zw) eased 0.80 cents to 13.20 cents. DELTA (DLTA.zw) lost 0.50 cents to trade at 115.50 cents and PADENGA (PHL.zw) slid 0.10 cents to settle at 9.40 cents. The losses were partially offset by gains in DZLH (DZL.zw) and SEEDCO (SEED.zw) which increased by a cent each to close at 9 cents and 105 cents respectively. INNSCOR (INN.zw) added 0.80 cents to 59.80 cents. On the mining sector, RIOZIM (RIOZ.zw) fell a significant 5 cents to close at 10 cents whereas  HWANGE (HCCL.zw) went up by 0.25 cents to 4.25 cents.