Safaricom Share Price Clocks New High

Equities

Trading activity declined slightly on Tuesday compared to its performance previously. The NSE 20 Share index was up though marginally to close the day at 3478.97 points, after days of downtrend which saw it touch the levels last seen in April 2012.The NASI gained 1.69 points to settle at 144.60 points, the index’s 2 months high.

The NSE 25 Share index added 25.64 points to end the day at 3478.97 points from 3460.60 points earlier. Market capitalization grew to KES 2082.669 billion from KES 2056.47 billion yesterday, whilst equity turnover dropped to KES 0.69 billion from KES 0.75 billion on Monday on account of a decline in the volume of shares traded.

Safaricom Limited touched an all-time high of KES 21.00 but eased to an average of KES 20.00 at market close, after 19 million shares changed hands, which accounted for more than half of the total shares traded during the day.

The share price was mainly driven by local investors’ interest in the Telco whose participation in the counter stood at 56% of the total market turnover, even though foreign investors’ exits were noted. Safaricom announced a special dividend of KES 0.68 on 26th July, 2016; in addition to its previous dividend of KES 0.76 which shall be paid to shareholders on or before December 01st 2016.The firm’s books closure will be on September 02nd 2016.

 Currencies

The Kenya shilling was stable in its trading against the US dollar as it exchanged at a mean of KES 101.41 compared to an average of KES 101.40 yesterday as buyers from sectors like energy held back their dollar demands in expectation of better rates.

The shilling lost ground further albeit slightly against the Sterling and the Euro to close the day at a mean of KES 133.84 and KES 113.26 respectively. We opine that the shilling will likely strengthened onwards against the Sterling Pound up until the details of how Britain will leave the EU are hammered out.