Equities Maintain a Positive Trajectory on Thursday

The equities persisted gains in Thursday’s session, up 0.53 percent further as depicted by the All Share Index albeit on lower turnover.

Safaricom Limited was the highest mover, accounting for 31.9 percent of the total market activity. The Telco closed 1.0 percent higher at the price as foreign investors went bullish on the counter.

There was notable activity in Cooperative Bank of Kenya (NSE: COOP) where economists saw local investors sell off the counter pushing its price 0.31 percent lower. Notably, lower activity was seen in EABL compared to the previous trading as the counter closed unchanged in price.

Foreign investor activity came down 6.9 percent from the previous session to 46.7 percent of the total market activity.

Safaricom Limited (NSE: SCOM) accounted for 51.9 percent of the desk’s trades while for the first time in eight sessions exuded buying interest recording the day’s highest inflows.

Kenya Commercial Bank Group Plc (NSE: KCB) also attracted buying interest logging as the second highest foreign traded counter while East African Breweries Ltd (NSE: EABL) displayed selling interest from the desk.

Foreign investors have been sellers from EABL for the past one month with a price range of between KES 240- 245. Foreign investors broke an 8 session selling streak to record net-buying activity in today’s session.

The Bond turnover levels grew by 98.7 percent in the session to 0.90 billion shillings on 25 deals from 21 deals previously.

Kenyan Shilling Performance

The Kenyan shilling weakened against the US Dollar by 1.22 percent on a year year-to-date. Against the Sterling Pound, the Kenyan Shilling weakened by 8.87 percent while against the Euro, the Kenyan Shilling weakened by 14.53 percent.

Kenyan Stock Market

The market turnover at the bourse declined 31.8 percent to USD 4.88 million 505.78 million shillings from Wednesday’s trading.

The NSE 20 and NASI rose 0.40 percent and 0.53 percent to close at 3,743.10 and 162.50 respectively while foreign investors assumed a net buying position by accounting for 56.0% of total market purchases and 37.6 percent of total market sales.

EAC Markets  

In Rwanda, the RSE RSI and RASI held constant at 134.13 and 133.30 respectively while in Uganda, the USE ALSI gained 0.89 percent while USE LCI dropped 0.11 percent to close at 1,725.46 and 382.62 respectively.