Equities Market Continues Downward Spiral on Tuesday

The Equities

On Tuesday, equities market at the Nairobi Securities Exchange continued the downward spiral that had been set in motion in the previous session on Monday.

The NSE- 20 Share Index eased 0.50 percent to perch at 3267.53 points. The NSE-25 Share Index declined by 0.11 percent to close at 3675.03 points whilst Nairobi All Share Index (NASI) wiped off 0.19 points to settle at 138.01 points. Equity turnover on the other hand expanded 44.94 percent to 426.57 million shillings from 294.31 million shillings recorded on Monday’s session. Shareholder wealth narrowed slightly by 0.14 percent to close at 1.999 trillion shillings.

The A/D ratio improved to 0.71x from 0.52x; as the gap between advancing and declining stocks narrowed in the session. Umeme Holdings Ltd is looking at fully shedding its shareholding stake in Ugandan utility firm UMEME Ltd (NSE: UMME). This follows the announcement of intention to offload the remaining 37.25Mn shares to retail investors in the next two weeks.

Umeme Holdings recently completed partial sale of its stake, majorly to institutional investors, that augmented Uganda’s National Social Security Fund as the top largest shareholder of Umeme at 23.17 percent (from 15.67 percent) after taking up 121.82 million shares in the sale transaction. The share performance and activity of UMEME Ltd remained subdued in Tuesday’s session closing at 15.50 shillings.

Actively traded in stocks

Safaricom Ltd (NSE: SCOM) was the most actively traded stock today accounting for 59.99 percent of the total market value traded activity. KCB Group Ltd (NSE: KCB) was the second most actively traded counter, accounting for 16.31% of the total market turnover.

Gaining stocks

TPS Eastern Africa Ltd (NSE: TPSE) emerged the top advancing stock posting a 5.41 percent gain to close the day at 19.50 percent. Mumias Sugar Co Ltd (NSE: MSC) came second increasing by 4.55 percent to close at 1.15 shillings.

Losing Stocks

Olympia Capital Holdings Ltd (NSE: OCH) was the session’s top laggard declining by 6.25 percent to close at 3.00 shillings. East Africa Portland Cement Co. Ltd (NSE: PORT) continued its dismal performance shedding off 4.76 percent to close the day at 20.00 shillings.