African Market Watch: Monday, 23rd February 2015

Egypt: The Egyptian stock market closed on positive note, with the EGX 20 capped index, EGX 30 index and increased by 1.02%, 1.12% and 0.18% respectively.  Today’s top gainer today is Egyptian Company for Mobile Service, rising 10.0% to close at LE 178.93 and the top loser is Egyptian International Pharmaceutic which shaved off 8.57 percent to close at LE 78. Foreign buys and sales stood at 11.2% and 9.9% respectively of total turnover (LE 505.03 mn) with total market capitalization of USD68.2 bn.

Kenya: The Nairobi All Share Index (NASI) plummeted by 0.19 points to close at 175.81 and also the NSE 20 declined 10.06 points to close at 5,455.84. Today’s top gainer today is Crown Paints, rising 9.49 percent to close at KES 150.00 and the top loser is Unga Group which shaved off 6.67 percent to close at KES 42.00. At the close of the day’s trading, volume of shares traded was recorded at 28.07mn shares, up 21.12%. Turnover was recorded at KES 1,190.09mn, down 19.2%t from Friday’s turnover and KCB Bank is the top mover with a turnover of KES 366.59mn, representing 30.80 percent of the day’s total market turnover. Foreign buys and sales stood at 21.93% and 71.61% respectively of total turnover.

Mauritius: Both the Semdex (all shares index) and the SEM-10 index were on the upside, with the former gaining 0.27% to 2,006.57 points and the latter rising by 0.14% to 377.62 points. Overall market amounted to Rs51.2m, geared towards MCB Group which contributed 52% to TMT. The latter went up by 1.0% to Rs205.00 (VWAP: Rs203.96) with a total volume of 129.6k shares traded. On the other hand, SBM Holdings Ltd. dropped to Rs1.00 (-1.0%) on 111.4k shares exchanged. On the commerce counter, only mover was IBL which closed higher at Rs109.50 (+0.5%) on 40.6k shares, out of which 40k shares were crossed at that price level. Moroil grew by 0.4% to Rs27.10 on 22.1k shares, whilst UBP fell by 0.3% to Rs79.00 on 1.7k shares.

Nigeria: The Nigerian equity market sustained upward momentum today as the All Share Index gained 1.4% to close positive for the sixth consecutive trading session, cutting YTD losses to 14.0%. Likewise, market capitalization added N136.5bn to close at N9.9tn. Activity level measured by volume and value traded however closed sideways today, with 0.1% increase in volume and 0.5% decline in value, closing to 306.6m units  and N3.0bn in that order. The Banking counters remained the top favourite; Access and Zenith rallied +8.75% and +4.95% respectively to close at the highest level since the start of the year. Other notable gainers were UBA(+5.57%), Diamond(+4.45%) Stanbic(+3.60%) and Guaranty(+1.01%). Consumer names also rallied on aggressive local buying, Flourmill(+8.01%), UACN(+5%) and major brewers NB(+3.19%) and Guinness(+1.31%) all closed up. Whereas the waning sentiment for insurance stocks continued unabated as the Insurance Index further declined 0.5% to emerge the lone sector decliner today. The index was pressured by the losses in NEM Insurance (1.7%) and Continental Reinsurance (4.7%).

Rwanda: The RSE ALSI remained constant to close at 137.57 while the RSE RSI gained 0.11 percent to close at 236.68. Bank of Kigali went up 0.34 percent to close at RWF 296.00. Total volumes stood at 1,000 shares while total turnover stood at RWF 296,000.

South Africa: The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index added 0.57% to 53,336.46 by the close of trade in Johannesburg. While the Top 40-index gained 0.43% to 47 080 points. The FTSE/JSE Africa Media index surged 2.9 percent, while the FTSE/JSE Africa General Retailers Index gained a third day, adding 1.1 percent. A drop in the gold price to below $1 200 per ounce meant the Gold index gave up 3.82% and the Resources index was 1.01% lower, with Anglo American the biggest loser among the big double-listed stocks. In the resources sector Anglo American lost 2.31% to R218.01, while BHP Billiton [JSE:BIL] lost 1% to R280.10. Nedbank’s sshare price shot up initially to a new high of R262.44 after the group announced growth of 14% in headline earnings, but dropped back later on with the good news already discounted. The bank’s share price was just more than a week ago at a 52-week high. By midday it traded 0.82 lower at R254.82.

Tanzania: The All Shares Index (DSEI) shed 0.26 percent to close the day’s trading at 2,766.86. The Tanzania Share Index (TSL) also declined by 1.36 percent to close at 4,931.11. The market capitalization closed at TZS 24,234.17bn. Both the Industrial & Allied and Banks, Finance & Investment (BI) sectors slipped by 1.35% and 1.54% respectively. But the commercial services gained 0.27%. In term of the top loser, CRDB Bank closing at TZS 450.00 with a 5.26% percent decline and Africa Barrick Gold is the top gainer (3.65%) to close at TZS 7,660.00. The volume of shares traded closed at 1.24mn shares, while total turnover recorded at TZS 15.14bn at the close of trading today. Foreign buys and sales stood at 93.32% and 93.2% respectively of total turnover.

Uganda: The USE ALSI grew 0.24 percent to close at 2,096.12, as the USE LSI went up a marginal 0.03 percent to close at 320.16. National Insurance Corporation gained 12.50 percent to close at UGX 18.00. Umeme shed 0.20 percent to close at UGX 502.00. Total volume was recorded at 5.76mn shares while total turnover was recorded at UGX 818.25mn.

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: The Industrial index opened the week higher at 168.76 points after a 0.63 points (0.37%) gain. HIPPO (HIPO.zw) added 5 cents to trade at 50 cents and DELTA was up 0.50 cents to close at 116 cents. There were no losers in today’s trading session. Whereas, the Mining index was unchanged at 47.09 points. BINDURA, FALGOLD, HWANGE and RIOZIM were unchanged at 4 cents, 2.50 cents, 4.25 cents and 10 cents respectively.