This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
As the holiday season comes to an end, investors are slowly trickling back to the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), with many taking positions ahead of the end-of-year earnings season.
According to data, the NSE closed the week with a significant increase in trading activity, with 70 million shares valued at KSh 2.66 billion changing hands. This is a notable increase from the previous week, where 26 million shares valued at KSh 905 million were traded.
At the end of trading on Friday, the turnover stood at KSh 836 million, up from KSh 664 million the previous session. The number of shares traded also increased to 20 million, up from 16 million the previous week.
Analysts attribute the increase in activity to investors returning to the market after the long holiday season. 'Investors are coming back to the market after the long Xmas and New Year holidays. This is why the activity has picked up in the second week of the year,' said Gerald Muriuki, an analyst at Genghis Capital.
Notably, Safaricom touched a 52-week high of KSh 33.50 before retreating to close the week at KSh 32.80, with shares worth KSh 713.53 million traded. This represented 26.75 per cent of the week's traded value.
As the market continues to pick up, analysts expect listed firms to dominate trading activity, with Safaricom and banks being the most profitable and fundamentally strong institutions.
On Friday, Safaricom recorded the highest volume of 4.9 million traded shares, followed by Equity Group Holdings Plc (3.78 million), KCB Group Plc (3.2 million), and KenGen Plc (2.08 million).
With the average daily volume standing at 15.7 million, Friday saw the highest volume turnover of 20 million shares valued at KSh 836 million.
Notably, all NSE indices registered positive gains during the week, with the NSE 20 share index down 6.86 points to stand at 2701.04.
As investors continue to return to the market, analysts expect dividends and capital gains to play a significant role in the coming weeks.
