African Stock Market Performance at the end of May, 2015

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- African stock market performance across the region has remained fairly flat (with merely -0.8% average return) for local investors in the month of May 2015. Figures for the Market Performance Month of May saw the Exchanges record high’s of 4.9% and 4.0% in Botswana and Ghana respectively. Several Markets went the other way recording losses ranging from 0.2% to 6.7%  lead by the markets of South Africa (depreciated by 4.0%), Kenya (depreciated by 6.4%) and Namibia (down by 6.7%). However, looking at the year-to-date return, Africa equity market ended in bull mood with average return of 2.0%.

From the foreign investor viewpoint, African equity shed off an average of 2.2% (on a 1 month return basis) and 5.5% on a year-to-date basis. This is attributed to the appreciation of US Dollar against the majority of African currencies, for instance since the start of 2015 Ghanaian Cedi and Tanzanian Shilling have depreciated by 26.26% and 20.0% respectively against the US Dollar. The FTSE ASEA Pan Africa Index and the S&P All Africa Index for instance, both went down by 6.7% and 6.5% respectively.

The best performing market year-to-date for foreign investors is the Malawi equity market with a year-to-date return of 14.8% (measured by Malawi Stock Exchange MSE All Share Index return) out of which about 6.0% is due to the strengthening of Malawian kwacha against the US dollar.  This is followed by the Botswana and Tunisia equity markets recording year to date returns of 6.1% (measured by the BSE Domestic index) and 5.5% (measured as the Tunis All Share Index) respectively.

Likewise, the Botswana equity market (measured as the BSE Domestic index return) emerges as the top performer year-to-date for Batswana investors yielding 10.6% as at May 2015. At the same time, the Malawi equity market (measured as the MSE All Share index return) is the runner up for Malawi investors in the year to date yielding 8.4% followed by South Africa (measured by the FTSE/JSE All Share Index) at 5.0% and Ghana (measured by the GSE Composite Index) at 4.5% for domestic investors.

On the other hand, the top two worst performing markets year-to-date for foreign investors are the Ghanaian equity market and Zambian equity market which both underperformed by 17.4% and 15.60% respectively. For local investors, the top three losers on year-to-date basis are Mauritius equity market (declined 5.9%), Egyptian equity market (measured by EGX 30 index, plummeted by 1.6%) and the Nigerian equity market (measured by the NSE All Share with a loss of 1.0%). Looking at the May dollar return, the top worst losers were Kenya, Namibia and Uganda giving up 9.5%, 8.6% and 7.2% respectively. Although, the Tanzania equity appreciated by 0.6% in local return, the Tanzania depreciation recorded at 3.5% (in May) pulled the return into negative territory for foreign investors.

Note:

• The S&P All Africa index is a comprehensive benchmark for the African market, covering companies listed in 13 countries: Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe plus companies listed in developed markets that derive the majority of their revenue from the African continent.
• The FTSE ASEA Pan Africa Index Series represents the performance of eligible securities listed on ASEA (African Securities Exchanges Association) member exchanges. It is a free float market capitalisation weighted index series constructed from securities domiciled in the almost eighteen countries.