Market Indices Close in the Green

The Nairobi Securities Exchange market closed on a positive note yesterday as all market indices closed in the green territory and not as a day before. The NSE-20 share index came up by 0.33 percent to end the day at 4030 points as the NASI gained 0.1 percent to end the day at 146.88 points.

The NSE 25 Share Index increased by 0.14 percent to end the day at 4238.45 points. Market capitalization on the other hand grew by 0.11 percent to 2.070 Trillion shillings whilst equity turnover plummeted by 84.24% to 141.22 Million shillings.  Market breadth, a measure of market performance, indicated that the performance had slightly favored the losers, with the number of decliners -19 outweighing the number of advancers -17.

 Centum (NSE ICDC) power project is poised to grow after it announced strategies of doubling its exploration wells on Akiira Geothermal project by end of 2016 at a cost of 1.4 billion shillings. The plans will enhance generation of 70 Mega Watts of steam power by end of 2017.  The investment company has a 37.5% equity in the whole project whose approximated cost is KES 30 billion.

Akiira Geothermal is owned by Centum Investments in conjunction with three other non-Kenyan entities that include Ram Energy of the United States, Marine Power of the USA and Frontier Investment management. The project is expected to boost power supply in Kenya which will increase the chances of attaining the 5,000MW goal set by the Kenyan Government.

As the week begun to take shape the Kenyan shilling remained disciplined, recording gains against four of the seven in its basket of currencies. The shilling depreciated by a mere 0.01 percent against the US Dollar, to 101.48; after the Central Bank of Kenya Governor spoke optimistically on the Kenyan economy and the proactive nature of the institution.

The greenback was further propped by minutes of the Federal Reserve’s March policy meeting. The local unit furthered gains against the Sterling pound and the Euro, by 1.48 percent and 0.34 percent to close trading at 142.74 and 14.99 respectively.  The Kenyan shilling performed poorly on the regional front, weakening against the Ugandan- and Tanzanian shilling by 0.27 percent and 0.17 percent to close at 33.10 and 21.52 respectively.

Article by Juma Fred.