NAIROBI, KENYA: The Supreme Court ruling nullifying August 8 presidential election triggered a circuit breaker at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) causing a 30 minute shut down.
According to NSE, trading rules require the bourse to shut down the floor if an index dips by more than 5 per cent drastically.
“The NSE 20 share index declined by more than 5 per cent triggering a shut down between 12.30 and 1.00 pm but we are now back on,” A spokesperson at the NSE said.
During the shutdown window, Equity Bank was down 9.71 percent, Britam, CIC, both down by over 9 percent. NIC not far behind, down 8.64 percent. ARM, KenGen, Flame Tree, all down by over 7 percent. Housing Finance not far behind, down 6.9 percent.
Nairobi Securities Exchange chief executive Geoffrey Odundo said shares had fallen by the maximum daily limit of 10 percent, which requires a trading halt.
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Telecoms operator Safaricom, the biggest company by market value, fell 4.9 percent to trade at 24.00 shillings ($0.2328) per share, traders said.
“No one likes uncertainty especially if the uncertainty period is as long as 60 days,” said Ken Minjire, head of securities at Nairobi-based Genghis Capital.
Additional report by Reuters
