Banking and real estate stocks offer biggest returns at NSE in March

FINANCIAL STANDARD

By Wainaina Wambu 

Screen showing stock prices at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard.]

Real estate, agricultural and banking stocks made the most cash for investors at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) last month.

This was as telco Safaricom continued its dominance of the bourse, accounting for over half of the

shares traded in March.

The NSE’s monthly bulletin, dubbed barometer, shows that the Fahari I-Reit, Kenya’s only listed real estate investment trust, recorded the highest return at 2.4 per cent while the investment services stocks had the largest loss of 8.4 per cent.

Other top sector returns included agriculture at 1.6 per cent, banking at 1.2 per cent, investment at 1.3 per cent and insurance at 0.3 per cent.

Nairobi securities exchange chairman Samuel Kimani, flanked by Deputy President William Ruto (Centre) and Oscar Onyema (Right) president of the African Securities exchange association (ASEA) and CEO of the Nigerian stock exchange, during the launch of 7th Building African financial markets (BAFM) seminar at Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

Top losers included automobiles and accessories, telecommunications, energy and petroleum and manufacturing, which fell 7.7 per cent, 6.5 per cent, 2.7 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively.

Media giant Standard Group was the top gainer at the NSE in March with a 16.7 per cent month-on-month gain.

This comes as the business transforms into a world-class multi-media house, which includes the revamp of The Standard newspaper today. Market capitalisation fell by 4.1 per cent from Sh2.5 trillion in February to Sh2.4 trillion in March.

Equity turnover rose by 11.5 per cent last month to stand at Sh12.1 billion from Sh10.8 in February.

Bonds turnover declined by Sh12.7 from Sh77.4 Billion to Sh67.6 billion compared to February.

The NSE-20 Index - the benchmark index for the 20 best performing counters - fell by 3.6 per cent.

The NSE said the bulletin, which outlines performance in the local capital markets by turnover, index movements and individual stock performance, showed an improvement in the first quarter of the year.

“This monthly bulletin highlights the improvement in Q1 2021 after the release of Covid-19 vaccines and the potential impact that the third wave will have on various macroeconomic factors,” it said.

Safaricom accounted for over half of turnover at 51.1 per cent.

It was followed by KCB, East African Breweries, Equity and Standard Chartered banks to make up the top five.