Stocks at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rebounded the week ending April 17th inching up higher thanks to bank and Safaricom Plc stocks.
The Kenyan equities market performance increased with NSE All-Share Index (NASI) and NSE 25 Share index gaining by 2.7 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, while NSE 20-Share Index (NSE 20) increased by 0.3 per cent.
“However, equity turnover and the number of shares traded declined by 55.6 percent and 57.6 percent, respectively, following the short trading week (Easter Monday),” said the Central Bank of Kenya.
The performance of the NASI was driven by gains recorded by large-cap stocks such as Safaricom, Absa Kenya, SCBK, and EABL of 6.3 per cent , 4.0 per cent, 2.3 per cent, and 2.1 per cent, respectively.
Safaricom Plc accounted for 53.89 per cent of the total market capitalisation at KSh 1.12 Trillion
At the close of trading on Friday, market activity rose 173.1 per cent to USD 8.3m, on increased trading by foreign investors; their participation stood at 72.5 percent compared to 53.0 per cent registered in Thursday’s session.
Safaricom and KCB were the most traded counters, jointly accounting for 80.9 per cent of total turnover.
Large-cap gainers during the week included Equity Group, KCB Group, Safaricom, NCBA, Barclays, Co-operative Bank and EABL which gained by 53.5 per cent, 44.2 per cent, 41.9 per cent, 32.6 per cent, 21.9 per cent, 14.3 per cent, and 13.6 per cent, respectively.
Foreign investors remained net sellers for the week, with the net selling position decreasing marginally by 0.4 per cent to USD 8.35 mn, from a net selling position of USD 8.39 mn recorded the previous week.
