Africa review.

Nigeria: NGSEINDX+1.13%  

The market recorded the fourth straight gain this week, with the All Share Index closing up 1.13%, on market turnover of $95.5m . Of the total trades today, 80% (or $76.8m) was accounted for by the trade in GTAssure which was to divest  the name from GTBank  group  to the new owner - Assur Africa Holding. Adjusting for this unusual special trade, the market still posted a pretty decent turnover $18.7m.  The Banking space was very active, recording $16.5m worth of trades  -which was 76% of total trade (ex. GTAssure). There was a bit of drama towards the close as we saw an aggressive buyer mop up the entire offer sides of Access, UBA, ZenithBank, Diamondbank and SkyeBank. Once again there were large crosses going through in Zenith ($9mil ). UBA+4.92% finally released their 3Q numbers; PAT at 2bln is half the run rate we saw in 1Q and 2Q. Bottom-line: weak result but not unexpected. There were fairly strong movements in the non financials today with the likes of WAPCO (+3.31%) good support at 40 post 3Q numbers. Very little stock around in Dangcem , so it squeezed up +2.2.Flourmill (3.17%) now trading above the rights offer price (rights open on 14^th Nov). UACN -4.33% due to report 9months results tomorrow.

Kenya: NSE 20 +1.6%

Market bulletproof even after another grenade attack in the Northern part of the country. Nice underpin as corporate earnings keep rolling in. Once again offshore money dominated accounting for 84% of all purchases and 53% of the Sales. Nice to see turnover improve to $7.7mil. 63mil Safaricom shares went through the market between 3.05 -3.10 and accounted for 25% of the total turnover. KCB continues to rebound and is now +8% since their 3Q release. Kenya Airways+1% released an operational update and financial results due next week. Still no date for the rights offer but we know they need to do it by the 1Q2012 so the stock will be capped for now. Kengen was the top gainer after releasing their results yesterday. The stock had no 10% circuit breaker today, fairing well closing up 8.11% and again some offshore money chased the stock.

Ghana: GSE CI -0.1%

The market continued to struggle to trade any meaningful volumes with just about $64k exchanging hands. SCB continued to gather momentum (+0.29%) on expectation of o good Q3 numbers to be released on Monday. However losses in UNIL (-0.60%) and EBG (1.16%) pulled the GSE CI down marginally by 0.10%. We expect GCB figures to come out on Monday to stimulate activity in the stock.

Zimbabwe: -0.74%

There is a distinct lack of interest  in the market at the moment and most of the blue chips are coming off in a vacuum and weighing on the index. Seedco-4.3%, Delta-1.4% and Econet-0.5% amongst the worst performers albeit in retail volume. Turnover was subdued at $843k and Dairibord accounted for 50% of total turnover.

Zambia: Allshare+0.02%

It’s sad when a market trades $338k a day and we say it’s a busier day. Market sideways and doesn’t seem to be any catalyst. A few people we talk to are saying that they are just watching to see how the Sata administration pans out but it sounds like a convenient excuse to us. Zanaco-1.9% in small volume after releasing their 3Q numbers.