Safaricom shares closed NSE trading at Sh17.95 amid Monday demos

By Victor MUJIDU

Mobile subscriber Safaricom staged a 9.79 percent gain to close at Sh17.95 as investors bought into the counter that had been battered for days to record lows – even as the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) Monday defied the Azimio La Umoja– led demonstrations.

The stock market gained Sh56.57 billion to close at Sh1.66 trillion from Sh1.61 trillion on Friday, halting a steady decline that has been witnessed in the past few weeks.

It was the biggest single-day gain since September 6 last year, indicating that investors were eyeing bargains and looking beyond the current chaos that disrupted private business and government operations in the capital.

The market was expected to continue its slide yesterday as the heated political temperature adds to the dollar shortage and rising interest rates in the developed world – issues that have sparked foreign investor exit from the NSE.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) is a leading African Exchange, based in Kenya – one of the fastest-growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Safaricom’s stock lost 41 percent of its valuation at the beginning of 2022. At its peak in mid-2021, when its share price touched an all-time high of Sh44. 95, Safaricom accounted for up to 63 percent of the NSE’s total investor wealth after defying the Covid-19 storm that battered stocks at the market.

Investors in shares trading on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) lost Sh226.10 billion in paper wealth last week largely on bearish sentiment and a sell-off on Safaricom counter by foreign funds chasing higher returns in developed markets.

Market capitalization — the value of all stocks on the Nairobi bourse— slid to a fresh low of Sh1.61 trillion last Friday compared with Sh1.84 trillion the week before, according to NSE data.

Analysts largely blamed the 12.31 percent fall on a considerable sell-off by foreign investors on the Safaricom counter amid the weakening shilling against the dollar.

Safaricom, which accounted for 81.42 percent of NSE’s traded value last week, shed Sh170.28 billion of its value or three-quarters of the total market loss during the week.