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Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria Stock Markets: ‘Boom Town, Baby’

Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria Stock Markets: ‘Boom Town, Baby’

From Washington Post.

Several African stock markets are seeing huge returns this year in what one financial manager likens to a Boom Town, according to a Washington Post report.

Ghana’s stock market, though small, is one of the world’s top performers, up more than 50 percent so far in 2013, says Aly-Khan Satchu, described by the Washington Post as East Africa’s version of CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer. Satchu runs a financial management company in Nairobi. Kenya’s stock market is up 35 percent and has been hitting record highs all year. Nigeria is also up 35 percent, he says.

Global investors used to put their money into Africa’s Arab rim in the North and South Africa in the South, Satchu said in the report. Now the money is going to the middle. When Rwanda offered $400 million in 10-year dollar-denominated bonds last month, demand was more than eight times the supply.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame wrote in the Wall Street Journal Sunday following his country’s wildly popular bond offering that nine of the world’s 15 fast growing economies are in Africa. Foreign direct investment in 2012 exceeded $80 billion, up from $9 billion in 2000, according to the report.

Despite increased investment and rising stocks, Africa still needs to improve its infrastructure, improve gender equality and advance the skills and education, the report said.

Read more at Washington Post.