The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) closed the week with a sustained bullish trend, continued from last week’s gain. The week started on a high note, with Safaricom releasing early news on Monday that they had submitted a bid for a telecommunication license in Ethiopia. The horn of Africa nation remains one of Africa’s most untapped country, of which the sector has been fully government controlled. The news pushed Safaricom to new highs.
The All Share Index moved up 2.14%% to close the week at 169.15 basis points as against the 165.61 points recorded the previous week. This was equivalent to a 4-week gain of 6.64%, and an overall year-to-date gain of 11.2%.
The NSE 20 share index shed 21.67 points or 1.15% to close Friday at 1,866.58 points while the NSE25 share index added 38.9 points or 1.07% from last week’s close to stand at 3,674.77. The NSE 20 has shed 0.1% while the NSE25 has gained up-to 7.6% respectively in year to date performance.
The bourse’s weekly equity turnover was up, gaining 1.52% to Kes 2.45 billion from last week’s Kes 2.41 billion. The volume of shares traded at the exchange down up 0.33% to close the week with 74.62 million shares exchanging hands as compared to the 74.87 million
traded in the previous week.
The region’s largest company by market capitalization Safaricom Plc, rose during the week to touch an all-time-high of Kes 41.00 per share during the week. Safaricom later eased to close the week at Kes 40.35 per share being a 3.99% share price appreciation for the week, , up from Kes.38.80 registered the previous week.
Safaricom had Kes.1.9 billion worth transacted; this translated to a whooping 79.05% of the week’s traded value. The activity on Safaricom came up due to news of Safaricom, being part of a consortium that bid in Ethiopia, had made it to the list of qualified bidders, according to a report by Ethiopia Communications Authority.
The Banking Sector had shares worth Kes.397 million transacted which accounting for 16.21% of the week’s traded value. Equity Group Holdings Plc moved 3.3 million shares valued at Kes.132 million and closed the week at Kes.39.15 per share. KCB Group Plc was down 3.25% as the company traded on ex-dividend to Kes.40.25 per share, KCB had 2.5 million shares valued at Kes.103 million traded.
NSE Bonds & Derivatives
The Derivatives Market of the Nairobi Securities Exchange closed the week with a total of 272 contracts valued at Kes. 10.6 million transacted, this was a notable decline in transaction value from the 210 contracts valued at Kes.8.2 million posted in the preceding week.
Trading on the secondary bond market at the Nairobi Securities Exchange posted a 3.15% decline in activity with Kes.17.29 billion worth of bonds traded against the Kes 17.85 billion worth of bonds transacted in the previous week.
