Market Commentary

Overall, sentiments on African equity markets were mixed with 9 of the markets we cover advancing, 2 remaining flat, and 6 losing grounds in local terms this week. 

2020 will probably have a few dedicated chapters in history books due to the unprecedented situations we had to go through in so many areas of our lives, and this, at a global scale. But the performance of African equity markets during the final trading week of the year reflects investors’ optimism for a return to normalcy as vaccination campaigns are unfolding across the globe, and governments confirmed their intention to support economies.

African equities performance was mixed this week with each market reacting to their own set of local factors, while markets in the US, Europe and Asia, were mostly down for the week. Global markets seem to have reacted negatively to unsteady progress toward another covid-19 relief package in the US, unsuccessful negotiations to date on Britain’s trade relationships with the European Union, and were not particularly excited by the ECB extended its bond-buying program.

This month, African markets have been marked by Four East African countries: Rwanda (RSE), Uganda (USE), Tanzania (DSE), and Burundi, who have finally merged their stock markets through a decade-long automation project to attract investment. It is a project that has been in the making since 2011 when countries from the region embarked on integrating their stock exchanges. The technology platform dubbed the EAC Capital Markets Infrastructure (CMI), developed by a Pakistan-based private firm, will basically interconnect all the region’s trading systems: Through the platform, investors in the four countries will be able to buy and sell shares of companies listed in any of the countries without going through different stakeholders.