[Graph in pdf]
Equities Market
The Stock market prices turned up 1.4% in average in the first-full trading week of August 2025, mainly supported by the ongoing earnings season for half year 2025 (H1-2025) from the banking, insurance sector among others. The market also remains elevated by the prevailing low interest rates which has seen a shift in focus to equities.
NSE 25 stocks gained the most at 1.7% followed by NSE 10and NSE 20 with gains of 1.5% and 1.3%, respectively. As such, the market capitalization went up 1.4% from KES 2,504.17Bn to KES 2,539.53Bn, out of which Safaricom commands KES
Shares traded however dipped 33.4% from 112.57Mn to 74.93Mn shares to pull down the week’s value traded 28.3% down from KES 2,812.13Mn to KES 2,015.86Mn. This is as investors take a keen watch on the performances being announced.
Foreign activity improved from 17.6% to 24.2% with a 31.5% drop in net foreign outflows from KES 386.11Mn to KES 264.65Mn. Heavy foreign activity remained on the telecommunication and the banking sectors in that order.
Sector-wise performance saw the Banking sector topped with KES 980.26Mn after trading 23.74MN shares to account for 48.7% and 31.7% of the week’s turnover and shares traded respectively. The telecommunication and manufacturing sectors took second and third mover positions with KES 567.92MN and KES 249.92Mn after changing hands 21.80Mn and 13.21MN shares, respectively. The three sectors accounted for 89.3% and 78.4% of the market value and turnovers respectively.
Safaricom emerged the week’s top mover with KES 567.92Mn from 21.80Mn shares to account for 48.7% turnover and 31.7% of the shares traded. The telco’s price reverses up 1.0% from KES 26.00 to KES 26.25 per share.
KCB Group emerged second top mover with KES 288.73Mn after trading 6.03Mn shares whose price advanced 2.2% up from KES 47.30 to KES 48.35 per share. The top tier 1 bank’s activity remain supported by the upcoming financials results for H1-2025. This is further supported by a better dividend outlook after the Bank closed its NBK sale to Access Bank, a Nigerian bank.
Equity Group took third position with KES 275.44Mn from 5.35Mn shares ahead of its H1-2025 financials projected for Monday, 11th August 2025. The Bank’s price surged 4.0% up from KES 50.50 to KES 52.50 per share, slightly lower from our KES 54.00 valuation price.
During the week, Stanbic Bank reported a KES 8.61Bn profits before tax (PBT) for the first half of 2025 (H1-2025), representing a 14.2% year on year decline from that of KES 10.03Bn reported in H1-2024. Profits after tax were down 9.3% y-y from KES 7.21Bn to KES 6.54Bn. The was performance impacted by a 14.6% decline in loan book occasioned by low disbursements. Bank’s Board recommended a KES 3.80 dividend per share whose book closure and payment dates are set for 2nd and 9th September respectively. We recommend a HOLD recommendation on the Bank’s shares price as we review its price down.
[Graph in pdf]
Bonds Market
Secondary bonds market activity dropped 12.9% from 708 to 617 deals to pull down the week’s turnover 33.7% from KES 59.18BN to KES 39.22Bn. Market attention remained on the normal papers which transacted KES 33.62Bn to account for 85.7% of the market value.
FD1/2020/15, re-opened in June 2025, emerged the week’s top mover with KES 6.92Bn as its yield declined 21.4bps from 13.1060% to 12.8915% and from the 13.4866% accepted in June’s auction.
In the coming week, we expect the value traded to decline even further as the market focus shifts to the primary auction of 13th August for the two infrastructure papers.
[Graph in pdf]
In the primary auction, the government is seeking KES 90.00Bn from two infrastructure papers, IFB1/2018/15 and IFB1/2022/19. This is at the back of heavy payouts for August 2025, standing at KES 181.66Bn, see table below for details. Watch out for our pre-auction advisory note.
[Graph in pdf]
Yield Curve
The yield curve movements mainly occurred in the middle curve to the long-end.
The section between 9-years and 19-years experienced an upwards shift with some papers recording a 50.0bps rise in yields, notably the 10-, 11 and 12-year papers. This was mainly influenced by the primary re-openings of IFB1/2018/015 (7.5-yrs) and IFB1/2022/019 (15.6-yrs) of August auction.
The short-end below 7-years remained stable on little to no activity in the section.
[Graph in pdf]
Interbank
The interbank rate remains relatively stable in the week, shedding 1.5bps from 9.60% to 9.62%. Average interbank moved from 9.60% to 9.61%.
Liquidity demand declined further declined at 37.0% w-w from KES 17.19Bn to 10.83Bn to pull the weekly average 35.5% down from KES 11.90Bn to KES 7.68Bn.
This drop in liquidity demand saw Bank excess liquidity improve 36.4% w-w from KES 4.40Bn to KES 6.00Bn.
[Graph in pdf]
Treasury Bills
Weekly T-bills auction was undersubscribed at 97.6% or KES 23.42Bn against weekly target of KES 24.00Bn. The government accepted KES 23.24Bn representing a 96.9% performance.
The performance was despite a heavy maturities of KES 34.26BN due on Monday, 11th August 2025, implying of some reallocation of funds to other investments which we view to funds conservation towards the primary auction for August.
Returns on investment further dropped in the week as informed by the ongoing rate cuts. A sharp decline was noted on the 182-day paper which lost 23.6bps from 8.4095% to 8.1732% mainly informed by investors’ bids whose average rate stood at 8.1732%.
In the coming week, payouts from T-Bills stands at KES 24.51Bn due on 24th August 2025.
[Graph in pdf]
Currency
The shilling was remained stable in the week to close the week at KES 129.24 per US dollar.
This remained supported by sufficient forex reserves which stood at USD 10,893Mn enough for 4.8- months of import cover. The reserves were 1.9% higher compared to that of USD 10,692MN recorded on 31st July 2025.
June 2025 diaspora remittances declined 3.9% month on month from USD 440.08Mn in May to USD 423.25Mn in June 2025. This were up 13.8% year on year compared to USD 371.59Mn received in June 2025. Cumulatively, total remittances for the first half of 2025 were up 5.8% to USD 2,518.32Mn in relation to compared to USD 2,379.45Mn of the first six months of 2024.
