Top five companies continue to dominate bourse trading

The five biggest firms continued to dominate trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) accounting for 84.2 per cent of the total market turnover.

However, the volume of Safaricom, Equity, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), British American Tobacco (BAT), and East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) as a proportion of total market turnover fell nine per cent last week, NSE data shows.

“The top five’s total turnover as a proportion of total market turnover decreased by 8.96 per cent from 93.2 per cent recorded in the previous week,” said the weekly report by NSE for the week ending November 13.

Safaricom continued to dominate accounting for 47 per cent of total market turnover, followed by Equity at 13 per cent.

This saw the telecommunication sector continue being the top-performing - accounting for 47 per cent of the total turnover.

The banking sector was ranked the second top-performing sector - accounting for 35.3 per cent while manufacturing sector was placed third at 14.4 per cent.

“The top three sectors cumulatively accounted for 96.8 per cent of the total market turnover,” said the bourse report. At the close of the week, market capitalisation stood at Sh2.2 trillion - a rise of 1.85 per cent increase the previous week.

The volume of equity traded fell 20.36 per cent, closing the week at Sh82 million compared to Sh103.5 million the previous week. Equity turnover fell by 33.84 per cent to Sh2 trillion from Sh3.3 trillion the preceding week.

The bonds market closed the week with a 29.7 per cent increase to Sh10 billion from Sh7.8 billion the previous week.

The NSE 20-share index, however, closed the week lower at 1,789.52 points, an increase of 1.13 from the previous week. The All-Share Index closed the week at 143.93 points - a 1.85 per cent increase compared to the previous week.