This is according to data from the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation (CDSC) which registered and stores data on the number of trading accounts in the country.
The local individual investors commonly referred to as retail investors represented 94.4 percent of all registered investors in the nine-month period or 20,093 investors.
The growth in the number of local retail investors has coincided with the retreat of foreign investors from the domestic market in the face of global volatility.
The exits mirrored by heavy portfolio outflows in the year to date have opened the door for local investor participation from the lowly priced stocks and other listed securities.
The rise of the local individual and institutional investors has been timely in providing a floor for the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) which has remained on a bear run of the year with year-to-date (YTD) losses of 23.1 percent as of the end of trading last week.
Foreign investors at the NSE have been net sellers across nine of 10 months this year and had a net selling position of Ksh.21.8 billion as of October 31.
The participation of foreign investors in NSE Equities trading had plunged to a near eight-year low of 35.9 percent in September.
The step-up of local investors has helped prevent further volatility and swings in the market to help hold the NSE market capitalization in and around the Ksh.2 trillion mark.
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