The local Bourse drops by 1.0%. MCB dominates the week?s trading activity. Sugar stocks drop by 3.3% on news of lower sugar output. Courts Ltd. gains 2.9% on positive outlook for 2004.

For the week ending Monday 4th August 2003, the local bourse weakened, dragged lower by the poor performance of blue chip shares. The Sem-7 index, the index tracking the shares of highly capitalized stocks on the Mauritian stock exchange, slipped by 1.5% during the week under review. Both the local broad equity index, the Semdex, and the total return index, the SEMTRI eased by 1.0%. The SEMTRI dropped below its psychological 1,000 mark, but remained up by 22.6% for the year 2003.

The total trading turnover on the official market for the week jumped by 41.8% to Rs 95.0m. Trades on The Mauritius Commercial Bank Limited (MCB) accounted for 53.4% of the total trading turnover amid MCB?s on-going share buy-back scheme. Shares of MCB dropped by 0.7% to Rs 26.80. Shares of the other listed commercial bank, the State Bank of Mauritius Ltd. (SBM) also suffered from selling pressure as it edged 2.6% lower to Rs 15.00, its lowest level since end of April 2003. The completion of its share buy-back programme was regarded as the main factor behind SBM?s weakness. Last week, the banks & insurance sector eased by 1.5%.

Last week, the listed economic sectors posted a mixed performance. Sugar stocks witnessed the sharpest drop (-3.3%) amid news of lower-than-expected sugar output for the year 2003.The positive performers were the transport (+2.7%), investments (+1.3%) and industry (+0.3%) stocks. Shares of Air Mauritius Limited (AML) jumped by 2.7% to Rs 15.50 amid news of the re-establishment of its flights to the Far East. Another attraction for AML remains its healthy dividend yield (which stood at 12.9% as at Monday?s close). Within the investment stocks, the top performers were Caudan Development Limited (+5.3%), United Docks (+4.5%) and Fincorp Ltd. (+2.2%). Promotion and Development Limited (-2.2%) was the only investment stock that ended the week in negative territory. Over half of the investment stocks trade 40% below their historic net asset values. MDIT, which gained 1.1% to Rs 4.40, is the only investment stock that traded at a premium to its historical NAV.

After witnessing strong foreign interest early during the week, shares of hotel counter NMH edged lower to Rs 38.50, down 2.5%. Shares of Sun Resorts Limited gained 10 cents to Rs 43.60. Last week, commerce stocks edged 1.0% lower. Sellers were active on Happy World Foods Ltd. (-2.0%), Harel Mallac Ltd. (-5.7%), Shell (-0.9%) and IBL (-1.6%). Courts (Mauritius) Ltd. (+2.9%) was the sole riser on the commerce counter. In its annual report for its financial year ended 31st March 2003, the Chairman of Courts (Mauritius) Ltd. (CML), Mr Bruce Cohen, expects CML to benefit significantly from its Madagascar-based operations as well as from its local networks in the current financial year. Moreover, CML is expected to pursue its branch redevelopment strategy and to upgrade its product mix towards higher-value added goods.

Contribution by Confident Asset Management