Stock market dips for fourth day, Kenya shilling up

Nairobi Securities Exchange trading floor at the Nation Centre. The bourse has postponed its planned relocation to new offices in Westlands to the end of June. Photo/FILE  Nation Media Group

 

By GEOFFREY IRUNGU

In Summary

• Thursday’s decline of the indicative index marked a drop of more than 90 points in four days.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) continued to lose ground with the 20-share index dropping to 4,902.60 points, which analysts attributed to reduced participation by local investors.

Thursday’s decline of the indicative index marked a drop of more than 90 points in four days.

Standard Investment Bank (SIB) analysts said equity turnover fell by 20.5 per cent.

“Foreign investors dominated trading, accounting for 54 per cent of trades. Top foreign investor buys included Safaricom and EABL while top foreign sells were KCB and Equity Bank,” said a daily investors’ note by SIB.

In the currency markets the shilling has strengthened in the past few days coming to below 84 units to the dollar from Monday this week.

The shilling benefited from the return to normal economic activity and dollar inflows from the tea auction on Tuesday.