Kenya Equity Markets | 14 Oct 2015: Bear maintains supremacy, Equity Group share drops 8.1% …

Nairobi, Kenya Capital Markets in Africa — The Bear maintained the supremacy at the end of today’s trading session to stay in the South Pole. The equity market capitalization ended at KES 1,917 billion after losing KES 50 billion (c.US$484 million) or 2.54 percent from the market capitalization of KES 1,967 billion recorded at previous trading session.

The Nairobi All Share Index crashed by 2.53 percent or 3.54 points to end at 136.33 points and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE20) index tumbled by 102.86 points or 2.59 percent to close at 3,875.84 points. Also, NSE 25 index closed at 3,939 after dipping by 2.85 percent. The FTSE NSE 15 index and FTSE NSE 25 remained unchanged to end at 183.48 and at 182.94 points respectively.

Look at today’s market activities, the volume of shares traded rose 102.34 percent to close at 44.44 million and the total turnover jumped 171.26 percent to close at KES 1.50 billion. In term of investor types, foreign buys stood at 90.78 percent of total turnover, while foreign sales stood at 91.88 percent of total turnover. Foreign investors were keen on buying Barclays shares trading a block of 2mn shares at a price of KES 11.90.

Equity Group was the largest mover of the day with a turnover of KES 978.11 million representing 65.32 percent of the total market turnover. Other most actively traded stocks were Kenya Commercial Bank recorded KES 241.391 million; SAFARICOM Limited had KES 87.280 million, East Africa Breweries Limited registered KES 40.987 million and British-American Tobacco Kenya ended with a turnover of KES 35.678 million.

From the market movers and shakers, today’s price mover was Olympia Capital Holdings Limited emerged as the top advancer after surging by 8.89 percent to end the day at KES 4.90. TPS Eastern Africa (Serena) Limited jumped by 5.36 percent to close the day at KES 29.50. Flame Tree Group Holdings Limited surged by 4.48 percent to settle at KES 7.00. Also, I&M Holdings Limited added 4.17 percent to end at KES 100.00 and Nairobi Securities Exchanges ended at KES 20.75 after surging by 1.22 percent.

 On the contrary, Equity Group emerged as the top decliner after dropping 8.05 percent to trade the day at KES 40.00. SCANGROUP Limited settled at KES 23.00 after dipping by 8.00 percent and UMEME Limited plunged by 7.78 percent to trade at KES 16.00. Trans-Century Limited Limited dropped 7.69 percent to close at KES 13.20 and NIC Bank Limited slacked by 6.54 to trade at KES 35.75.

On foreign exchange market front, the Kenyan Shilling depreciated against US dollar to trade at KES 103.2257 by dropping 0.26 percent and sagged by 0.06 percent to close at KES 157.8175 against British pound. Also, Kenyan Shillings lost 0.45 percent against the Euro to close at KES 117.5850 but appreciated by 0.77 percent against South African rand to trade at KES 7.6407.