[Graph in pdf]
Equities Market
Stocks turned up 0.4% in the second last week of April 2025, supported end-of-month activities, especially from institutional clients, and the 90-day pause on the USA’s elevated tariffs and the intention of lowering the same. NSE 10 gained 1.1%, followed by NSE 25 at 1.0%, as NSE 20 stabilized at 2,151.50 points.
Market value traded doubled at 138.0% up week on week (w-w) from KES 959.23Mn to 2,283.23Mn M, bolstered by a 67.7% jump in the volumes traded from 47.55Mn to 79.74Mn M shares.
Foreign activities improved from 51.2% to 75.9% with a 10.8% rise in net foreign outflows from KES 226.35Mn to KES 250.86Mn on what appeared to be more of book transfers. Heavy foreign activities were witnessed in the banking and telecommunications sectors.
Market focus remained in the banking sector, which moved KES 1,753.36Mn from 40.88Mn shares, representing 76.8% and 51.3% of the total market turnover and volumes traded.
Equity Group led the banking sector to emerge the week’s top mover after trading KES 1,268.51Mn from 28.34Mn shares strongly supported by foreign transactions. Foreign activities dominated Equity Group’s transactions at 97.9%, out of which 99.4% were foreign sales while 96.4% were foreign buys of all its sales and buys transactions respectively. The Group’s KES 4.25 dividend book closure is set for 23rd May for a payment on 30th June 2025.
KCB Group, Standard Chartered Bank (K) and Co-op Bank Group took, 3rd, 4th and 5th positions in the top movers’ list supported by their coming book closures except for KCB Group, see table below for details.
In the coming week, we expect attention to remain on Co-op Bank (for a KES 1.50 dividend book closure on 28th April), Absa Bank (K), BK Group and NCBA Group whose final dividend book closures are set for Wednesday, 30th April 2025.
Attention also remained on Safaricom which took second mover position with KES 440.85Mn value from 25.43Mn as heavy foreign outflows persisted. Consequently Safaricom’s price further thinned 0.6% to KES 17.20 per share.
Absa new Gold emerged the week’s top gainer at 12.5% from KES 3,555.00 to KES 4,000.00 per share as investors demand for the gold exchange traded funds to hedge against losses world over.
Secondary bonds market remained quite active to trade KES 54.33Bn, 22.0% higher compared to those traded the week before in spite of the low transactions of 846 deals compared to 884 deals traded the week before. This is despite the ongoing primary sale whose auction will happen on 30th April 2025 for value date of 5th May 2025.
Normal bonds were the most traded papers with a total of KES 41.66Bn or 76.7% of the week’s traded value led by FXD1/2013/15 which traded KES 6.83Bn at as it dropped from 11.7027% to 11.5820% against a coupon of 12.000%.
May’s first primary auction for FXD1/2022/15(12-years of 13.942% coupon and FXD1/2022/25(22.5-yeatrs of 14.188% coupon) will happen on Wednesday, 30th April 2025, seeking KES 50 billion from the public. Watch out for our pre-auction note on Monday, 28th April 2025.
The second auction will happen a week later on 7th May 2024 for FXD1/2012/20(7.6-years) of 12.000% coupon, targeting KES 30 billion from the public, see attached.
[Graph in pdf]
Yield Curve
The NSE yield curve shifted downwards in the week on effect from the general transmission of rates cuts in the market. This was further drifted down by a tight liquid environment drained by the primary bond auctions.
The long-end shifted faster down led by papers around 18-years impacted by the ongoing primary auction.
We anticipate further downward shift in the first last week of April as rates further stabilize down.
[Graph in pdf]
Interbank
Overall interbank rate edged up 11.2bps w-w from 9.83% to 9.94% on effect from increased liquidity demand to defy the above rate cut transmissions in the market. Average interbank went up 5.4bps up to 9.91%.
Liquidity demand doubled up 139.8% from KES 10.15Bn to KES 24.34Bn to push the average liquidity demand 233.6% up to KES 23.31Bn.
High liquidity demand saw bank excess liquidity dip 35.7% w-w down from KES 18.2Bn to KES 11.7Bn on elevated demand from the government securities.
[Graph in pdf]
Treasury Bills
The week’s T-bill auction was oversubscribed at 178.5% of KES 42.85Bn supported re-investments from the KES 41.35Bn maturing on Monday, 28th April 2025. A total of KES 42.77Bn or 99.8% was accepted, representing a 178.2% performance.
Returns on investment fu0rther edged down led by a 13.9bps drop on the 182-day paper from 8.7585% to 8.6190%. The 364- and 91-day papers’ returns lost marginally at 5.0bps and 2.7bps to 10.0208% and 8.4434% respectively.
In the first auction of May 2025, we expect an under-subscriptions for the first time in four straight weeks on a below requirement maturities of KES 21.13Bn due on 5th May 2025, which we expect to be re-invested back.
[Graph in pdf]
Currency
The local currency remained strong in the second last week of April, gaining 0.3%, 0.5% and 1.0% against the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen respectively. Against the British pound however, the shilling lost 0.3% week on week.
We view these major gains to have emanated from the ongoing bilateral agreements between Kenya and the People’s Republic of China that will see developments in various sectors ranging from infrastructure (both road and rail referred to as belt and road memorandum of understanding (MoU)), trade and manufacturing and educations MoUs. Kenya is expected bag in over KES 126Bn from these bilateral agreements.
Further, the shilling remains supported by sufficient forex reserves that stands at USD 9,805Mn, enough for 4.4-months of import cover.
[Graph in pdf]
