The news of the first coronavirus case in Kenya today sent investors at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) in a panic mode, with the blue-chip NSE20 index dropping 15 per cent.
The massive drop saw NSE halt trading for the day at 2.38PM, promising to continue trading on Monday.
''The NSE wishes to notify the general public that trading was halted at 2.38PM as per Equity Trading Rules which provides that when NSE20 drops by over five per cent at the opening session compared to closing value, trading can be halted for more than 30 minutes,'' NSE said in a statement.
Although the Nairobi bourse, just like others have been shedding since last month as foreign investors offload their stock to invest their money closer home as coronavirus spread, saw almost all counters at the bourse blink red.
Top five counters which account for almost 70 per cent of daily trading at the bourse: Safaricom Plc, KCB Group, Equity Group, Coop Bank and Scan Group recorded a significant drop in both share value and trade volumes.
Safaricom Plc, for instance, failed to hit the normal above Sh1 trillion market capitalisation, with its share price dropping by 5.44 per cent to Sh24.35.
KCB Group, on the other hand, managed to move a volume of 6.95 million to hit a market cap of Sh136.9 billion after its share price slide to Sh42.65, shedding Sh3.20 in value compared to Thursday trading.
The panic also saw Equity Bank, Coop Bank and Scan Group shade 7.1 per cent, 7.02 per cent and 1.3 per cent in share values.
Most stock exchanges globally continue to witness bear run as effects of coronavirus, declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) kick in.
It has so far claimed over 4500 lives and infected over 120,000 people in over 100 countries.
