The Nairobi Securities Exchange opened the week with mixed reactions with volumes being on the positive jumping by 282.97% to 87.55 while the Banking sector continued to push the NSE 20 Share Index down by 98.08 points to close at a Five year low 3,123.54 points.
Banking Sector
The Banking Sector had 38Million shares traded and represented 44.41% of the day’s traded volume. KCB Group touched a day’s high of Kes.25.00 and a low of Kes.24.50 while Equity Group closed 9.32% lower to Kes.26.75 on a volume of 16.2M shares.
Co-op bank was down one shilling and fifty cents to Kes.9.75, this is almost its IPO price of Ksh 9.50. Barclays Bank recovered 1.75% of value to settle at KES 8.70.
So far, four lenders have have said they will comply with the recently signed Banking Amendment Bill 2015 and have advised their customers that all new loans will be capped at 14.5%. These are Coop Bank, Barclays Bank, CBA Bank and KCB Group.
Barclays also announced a 10.23% drop in its Half year 2016 pre tax profit from Kes 4.55Billion to Kes 4.09Billion.
Safaricom was the day’s biggest mover with 46.3M shares exchanging hands at between Kes.19.75 and Kes.20.25; this represented 52.91% of the day’s traded volume.
Insurance Sector
Kenya Re will on 30th release its half year results followed by an investor briefing later in the day. Also to note is that Insurance Industry is currently on a collusion path with the regulator, IRA, as they are opposed to the bill in parliament that proposes cutting of claim settlement days to 30 days from the current 90 days. They are represented by the umbrella body, Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI). This is a challenge for the industry as some of the claims require investigation. With the short payment dates, will see an increase in claims expenses and an upward trend of in fraudulent cases.
(NSE, Sterling Capital, Kenyan Wall Street)
