The Nairobi Securities Exchange was mixed during the week, posting a marginal decline in major blue-chip counters. The benchmark All share index (NASI) closed the week at 140.07 points, recording a decline of 0.15 from last week’s close. This represented a 1-week loss of 0.11%, a 4-week loss of 0.57%, and an overall year-to-date loss of 15.83%.
The NSE 20 share index was down 15.63 points or 0.84% to close Friday at 1836.54 points, similarly, the NSE25 share index shed 16.68 points or 0.40% from last week’s close to stand at 3225.86. The NSE 20 and the NSE25 share indices have shed up-to 0.81% and 19.29% respectively in year to date performance.
Market activity continued to decline for a second week straight, with the weekly turnover declining by 26.7% to KES 1.1 billion from the 1.5 billion transacted the previous week. Similarly, the volume of shares exchanging hands on the exchange declined by 30.9% to 46.7 million from the 67.6 million posted the previous week.
Safaricom Plc was the most traded company by turnover, leading the activity chart with 21.6 million shares valued at Kes 652 million traded; contributing to 55.20% and 46.25% to the total equity turnover and volumes traded in the week, respectively.
The Banking Sector was second in activity, with shares worth Kes.363M transacted which accounted for 30.76% of the week’s traded value. Equity Group Holdings Plc shed 2.92% in price action to Kes.34.90, down from kes.35.95 registered last week with shares worth Kes.266 million transacted. KCB Group Plc was similarly down 1.04% to Kes.38.10, moving 904,000 shares valued at Kes.34 million.
In the week, British American Tobacco’s new product – Lyft – was in the news, with the possibility of deregistration following a directive by Kenya’s health ministry to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board to deregister the product on grounds that licensing of the product violated the law. The news caused a price decline on B.A.T down 3.02% to Kes.345.00 with 72,000 shares worth Kes.25.9 million exchanging hands on the bourse.
The Derivatives Market of the NSE closed the week with a total of 6 contracts valued at Kes.216,000 concluded in this week’s trading session, this was a further decline from last week’s value of Kes 474,000. The secondary trading on the bond market saw a moderate growth in activity with bonds valued at Kes.16.2 billion billion traded against the Kes 16.0 billion worth of bonds achieved in the previous week.
