Shilling Still on The Receiving End as Market Turnover Declines

The Kenyan shilling is still at the receiving end of the US Dollar, the Sterling Pound, and the Euro according to a daily market report released by Dyer and Blair Investment.

On Tuesday, the shilling weakened against the US Dollar by 1.07 percent on a year-to-date basis. Against the Sterling Pound and the Euro, the shilling weakened by 8.09 and 12.80 percent

At the Kenyan Stock Market, the market turnover declined by 1.8 percent to USD 7.63 million or an equivalent of 791.02 million shillings from Monday’s trading.

The NSE 20 and NASI dropped by 0.73 percent and 0.21 percent to close at 3,719.17 and 160.01 points respectively.

The Foreign investors, on the other hand, assumed a net selling position by accounting for 50.8 percent of total market sales and 46.9 percent of total market purchases.

On the East African Community Markets, in Rwanda, the RSE RSI and RASI held at 134.22 and 133.31 respectively while in Uganda, the USE ALSI and USE LCI declined 1.21 percent and 0.16 percent to close at 1,718.11 and 383.09 respectively.

The Equities persisted poor performance in Tuesday’s session as all the major indicators closed in the red as has been the trend in the last two trading sessions.

Similar to the previous session, Safaricom Plc (NSE: SCOM) and British American Tobacco Kenya Ltd (NSE: BAT) were in the top traded list and remained unchanged in price as the rest of the counters on the list closed lower in the session. The top five movers accounted for 89.7 percent of total market turnover.

Foreign investor activity took a 39.9 percent nosedive in today’s session compared to 81.3 percent foreign trade activity recorded previously. The desk’s main activity inclined towards British American Tobacco Kenya Ltd (NSE: BAT) which saw action on both sides of the trades while sell-offs were seen in Safaricom Plc (NSE: SCOM) which collectively accounted for 88.2 percent of total foreign trades. In overall, the foreign desk exuded net selling activity for the seventh consecutive session.

The bonds turnover contracted by 42.97 percent to 1.24 billion shillings in the session on 24 deals from 31 deals previously.