Secondary Market Turnover Records a 10.8 Percent Increase

By Amina Faki,

Market turnover closed at 3.8 million US dollars equivalent to 394.8 million shillings down by 48.5 percent from Friday’s trading.

Secondary market turnover at the bourse registered a 10.8 percent increase to close at 2.77 billion shillings higher from the previous session on 41 deals compared to 72 previously.

The secondary market turnover last week expanded by 35.06 percent to post 13.32 billion shillings.

Trading activity concentrated on the long end with 80 out of the 223 deals recorded specifically on the infrastructure bond papers.  Trading on the infrastructure bonds was mostly on account of profit taking activities.

The equities market performance decreased by 48.53 percent in turnover and major indices trending south, a marginal improvement from its performance last week which declined more than half to 2.33 billion shillings.

The NSE 20 and NASI indices lost 0.66 percent and 0.19 percent to close at 3,583.41 million shillings and 152.63 million shillings respectively recording a marginal improvement compared to last week’s trading (NSE 20 and NASI losing 0.4 and 1.08 percent respectively).

Safaricom Ltd. (NSE: SCOM) held the top performance by turnover driven by foreign trades at 64.02 percent.  The counter broke its downward trend evidenced consecutively in the past week to close 1.10 percent higher at 23 shillings.

A block traded on WPP Scangroup Ltd saw the price shed 1.23 percent and the counter list as the second highest mover of the day in turnover.

Out of five top gainers, four were traded by retail speculative traders save for Umeme Ltd (NSE: UMME) that saw foreign investor interest.

Foreign participation held steady at 69 percent of total market activity with buying interest heavy on Stanbic Bank Plc (NSE: CFC) and Safaricom Ltd (NSE: SCOM) which posted the highest and second highest net inflows (respectively).

Selling interest was in Bamburi Cement Ltd (NSE: BAMB) and Cooperative Bank Ltd (NSE: COOP). As expected on COOP, selling pressure pushed the price down 12.39 percent following its books’ closure on 30th June 2017. Overall, foreign investors were net buyers in Monday’s session.

Foreign participation rebounded, up by 63.3 percent in the course of last week to account for 68.28 percent accounting for 1.59 billion shillings of the total market turnover.

On Monday, foreign investors assumed a net buying position by accounting for 72.7 percent of total market purchases and 65.4 percent of total market sales.