Trading Session on Wednesday Closes on Bullish Sentiments

Market Indicators trended north on Wednesday with the Nairobi All Share Index NASI) advancing 0.37 percent to settle at 125.39 points.

Similarly, the NSE-20 Share and the NSE-25 Share indices edged up 0.63 percent and 0.45 percent to perch at 2983.20 and 3252.54 points respectively. The market turnover on the other hand expanded 37.10 percent to 794.94 million shillings whilst shareholders’ wealth gained a marginal 0.36 percent to close at 1.82 trillion shillings. Market breadth, measured by the unbiased A/D ratio, closed at 1.71X.

British American Tobacco Plc. (NSE: BAT) released relatively subdued FY16 financial results. Earnings per share (EPS) slowed 14.9 percent to 42.34 shillings on account of a 10.8 percent decline in net revenues to 19.9 billion shillings, occasioned by a 24.0 percent increase in Excise and VAT taxes in 2016.

Notably, gross revenues posted a slow growth of +2.4 percent y/y despite an increase in product prices (to offset higher taxes) coupled with lower sales from its contract manufacturing segment. The board of directors proposed a final dividend of 39.50 shillings per share.

Table: Equity Market Highlights

The top mover in the session’s activity was Safaricom Ltd (NSE: SCOM) which accounted for 70.96 percent of total turnover while KenolKobil Ltd (NSE: KENO) came in at a distant second with 5.52 percent of total value traded in the session. The listed telco’s high activity in the session emanated from increased foreign speculative activity.