The Kenya Shilling traded a 101.689-102.240 range on Monday. The market tends to focus on this pair but its worth considering that against a basket of currencies – the Shilling has appreciated quite considerably. The Nairobi All Share closed -0.53 points lower at 138.20. The Nairobi NSE20 Index ticked -7.31 points lower to close at 3283.94. Equity turnover was lackadaisical and clocked Sh294.313 million.
Safaricom was the most actively traded counter at the Nairobi Securities Exchange and closed unchanged at Sh20.00 with 10.284 million shares worth Sh205.668 million (some 69.78 per cent of the total volume traded today) changing hands. I look forward to hosting the chief executive Bob Collymore this Saturday from 0930am at the InterContinental Hotel. All are welcome. Safaricom has been a bull outlier for a number of years and is +31.16 per cent on a total return basis in 2016 vastly performing the All Share Index which is -4.76 per cent through this morning. I am expecting fresh all time highs before year end.
WPP-Scangroup firmed +0.28 per cent to close at Sh18.10 and was trading at session highs of Sh18.95 +4.99 per cent at the finish, WPP-ScanGroup is -39.66 per cent through 2016.
The presidential spokesman Manoah Esipisu MBS tweeted as follows Sunday afternoon: ''The Central Bank of Kenya whose mandate it is to regulate banks, is in full control of the situation and must be allowed to do its work.''
''We are all aware of careless and alarmist reports regarding the banking industry peddled mainly in social media in the last couple of days.''
Family Bank urged its customers to ignore negative statements and malicious rumours on social media that tried to depict it negatively. “The source of the malicious statement is under investigation by the directorate of Criminal Investigations,” the statement read.
The StanLib Fahari IREIT rallied +8.73 per cent to close at 13.70 on the news that SBG Securities chief executive Nkoregamba Mwebesa was joining Stanlib Kenya, replacing James Muratha who left in August.
The big banks are now piranhas and the little ones tadpoles. Kenya Commercial Bank eased -0.69 per cent to close at Sh30.50, and traded 878,800 shares. KCB is -25.71 per cent in 2016 on a total return basis in line with a banking sector which has been wrestling with some serious headwinds.
Equity Bank eased -0.78 per cent to close at Sh31.75 and traded 545,400 shares. Equity is -15.62 per cent in 2016 on a total return basis. KenolKobil rallied +3.6 per cent to close at a 2016 high of Sh12.95 and traded 229,900 shares. KenolKobil is +36.45 per cent through 2016 and has seriously outperformed through this year.
Kenya Power rebounded +2.23 per cent to close at Sh9.15 and was trading close to session highs of Sh9.45 +5.59 per cent at the closing bell.