Safaricom Dominates Trading at the Bourse on Wednesday

By Amina Faki

Market turnover on Wednesday picked up with Safaricom Ltd. (NSE: SCOM) leading the pack.

Increased foreign participation saw SCOM, East African Breweries Ltd. (NSE: EABL), Equity Group Holdings Ltd (NSE: EQTY) and KCB Group Ltd (NSE: KCB) hold the highest trading interest.

Activity in equities surged 382 percent from previous’ close with benchmarks shifting slightly higher. On Tuesday, Foreign participation soared to 86 percent of the day’s activity. Foreigners picked KCB Group Ltd (NSE: KCB), Equity Group Ltd (NSE: EQTY) and SCOM, while exiting EABL, now for the preceding 6 sessions. Overall, foreigners continued in buying accounting for 4.7 percent for the second session of the week.

On the other hand, the NSE 20 and NASI indices went up 0.17 percent and 0.05 percent to close at 3,600.60 million shillings and 152.19 million shillings respectively.

The market turnover bounced again yesterday unexpectedly to 3.4 billion shillings with a foreign investor driving 50 percent of market turnover.

Interest in the IFBs remains strong at above 12.15 percent with supply still at and below 12 percent.

Genghis Capital projects this spread to close in the next few weeks. Sell offs on the medium term is expected as investors look to take profits ahead of the auction which will push up the rates on these slightly.

“The overnight rate continues to rise trading yesterday at 6.01 percent and should the current trend protract, we may see double digits in the next few weeks if government disbursements fail to materialize” wrote Genghis.