Kenya’s stock market activity has gone up ahead of the earnings season. The anticipated release of end-year financial results by listed commercial banks continues to push up volumes, turnover and deals at the Nairobi bourse.
Available data shows that a total of 97 million shares valued at KSh3.57 billion were traded at the bourse at the close of business on Friday.
This is compared to against 70 million shares valued at KSh2.5 billion transacted the previous week.
“This increased activity at the NSE can be attributed to the anticipated release of end year financial results by listed commercial banks. These results are expected to begin trickling in this month with investors waiting for their dividends,” said Reginald Kadzutu, Head of Retail, Zamara.
He added that increased foreign activity is also pushing up activity at the bourse due to a strengthening Kenya Shilling against major currencies, including the US dollar.
At weeks end, the NSE 20 share index was down 1.95 points to settle at 2602.36. All Share Index (NASI) ended the week 6.56 points higher or 4.05% to settle at 168.65. The NSE 25 Share index added 103.71 points or 2.58% to stand at 4127.06.
The Banking Sector had shares worth KSh1.59 billion transacted which accounted for 44.71% of the week’s traded value.
Equity Group Holdings rose by 4% to KSh52.00, up from KSh.0.00 registered the previous session with shares worth KSh624 million transacted.
KCB Group was down 1.91% to KSh51.25 and moved 11.4 million shares valued at KSh593 million. On Thursday, KCB Group actively moved 4.4 million shares valued at KSh230 million at between KSh52.00 and KSh53.00.
Turnover for Friday soared to KSh1.3 billion from the previous session’s KSh816 million while the number of shares traded stood at 34 million against 20.8 million posted on Thursday.
The Derivative Market closed the week with a total of 15 contracts worth KSh812,000 transacted.
Highly-priced E.A Breweries closed the week 3.50% higher to KSh221.75 moving 1.3 million shares valued at KSh303.7 million. In the previous week, its share price remained steady at KSh214.25 moving 1.2 million shares valued at KSh258 million.
BAT, another top performer had its shares prices oscillating around KSh900 some five years ago. At the close of this week, the price was down 2.04% from the previous week to KSh480.00 with 280,000 shares traded, worth KSh134.6 million.
Safaricom was the main feature with 42.6 million shares valued at KSh1.37 billion changing hands at between KSh30.30 and KSh33.30. This represented 38.49% of the week’s traded value.
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