Nairobi Securities Exchange Records 54 Percent Drop in Profit After Tax in Half Year Results

The Nairobi Securities Exchange has announced a 54% drop in profit after tax in the six months through June on reduced equity trading volumes. Net profit dropped from KES 178.58 million in 2015 for the six months ending June 30, 2015 to KES 81.96 million in 2016.Total income decreased by 17% from KES 401.1 million to KES 334.3 million in the period under review.

“This was mainly due to a decrease in equity turnover by 31%,” the company said in a statement.

Equity turnover dropped to KES 147 billion compared to KES 213 billion the previous period. The group is betting on broadening its product offerings which will include the derivatives market and Exchange Traded Funds. The board of directors did not recommend the payment of an interim dividend for the first half of the year 2016.

Read: Equity bank posts a profit of 10.1 billion 2016 Half year results

Equities

Trading activity improved on Tuesday when compared to its previous performance as two of the three indices and the equity turnover were on an uptrend.

The NSE 20 Share index lost 13.34 points to end the day at 3442.87 points while the NASI added 1.58 points to close the day at 146.31 points. The NSE 25 Share index was up by 16.92 points to 3916.93 points from 3900.01 points before.

Shareholders wealth increased to KES 2107.377 from KES 2084.556 billion yesterday, whilst equity turnover advanced to KES 0.31 billion from KES 0.23 billion earlier owing to a more than half climb in the number of shares traded.

Currencies

The Kenya shilling was stable on Tuesday having being greatly supported by inflows from offshore investors buying government securities which balanced out with dollar demand from goods importers.

The local currency lost albeit slightly against the Sterling and the Euro with global markets looking at underwhelming UK growth figures expected to be released this Friday and where, if UK data continues to come in below expectations then further monetary easing will be initiated hence likely to weaken the Sterling more.

 Read: The Market in Focus: The Kenyan Shilling