[Graph in pdf]
Equities Market
Equities prices reversed down in the third week of September 2025, shedding 2.9% on average. NSE 20 stocks lost the most at 3.8% followed by NSE 10 and NSE 25 stocks with 2.9% and 2.8%, respectively. The Investment Services, the Automobile & Accessories and the Insurance sector lost the most at 8.4%, 5.7% and 5.0%, average losses respectively. The energy sector lost 4.6% as Banks also lost 2.8% while the Telecommunication sector also lost 2.5%.
The market turnover jumped up 32.2% from KES 4,035.82Mn to KES 5,334.65Mn supported by high priced counters. This is despite a 25.9% decline in shares traded from 207.32Mn to 153.70Mn shares.
Market focus remained in the banking, the telecommunication and the manufacturing sectors which accounted for 69.9%, 16.8% and 6.3% of the market value respectively. The three sectors moved 93.0% and 72.6% of the market turnover and volumes traded.
Foreign activity doubled up from 18.2% to 40.6% with an acceleration in net foreign outflows from KES 525.26Mn to KES 2,960.66Mn. Heavy net foreign outflows happened in the Banking and the telecommunication sectors.
Equity Group emerged top mover with KES 1,705.61Mn from 31.59Mn shares whose price dropped marginally at 0.5% from KES 54.25MN to KES 54.00 per share. The Bank recorded the highest net foreign outflows of KES 943.48Mn on a high foreign exits of 91.4% of its foreign sales compared to 36.1% foreign buys of all its buys.
KCB Group took second mover position with KES 980.42Mn after trading 18.47Mn shares whose price gained 1.4% from KES 53.00 to KES 53.75 per share. The counter’s foreign participation expanded from 2.7% to 28.7% elevated by high foreign sales of 55.8% in relation to only 1.5% foreign buys. As such, KCB Group took third position in top net foreign outflows.
Absa Bank Kenya and Stanbic closed took fourth and fifth top mover positions with KES 465.48Mn and KES 236.04Mn still elevated by heavy foreign exits. Absa Bank’s activity were also supported by its KES 0.20 per share interim dividend whose book closure happened on 19th September for a payment on 15th October 2025.
Safaricom took third top mover position with KES 898.53MN turnover after changing hands 30.63Mn shares still occasioned by a heavy foreign sales. The heavy foreign exits saw the telco’s price drop 2.6 week n week (w-w) from KES 29.45 to KES 28.70 per share. The telco emerged second in the top foreign exit counters to record a net foreign outflow of KES 761.84Mn.
[Graph in pdf]
Bonds Market
The Secondary bonds activity turned up to exchange a total of KES 55.40Bn, representing a 40.8% rise compared to KES 39.36Bn traded in the second week of September. This was as the number of deals traded improved 12.0% from 951 to 1,069 deals in the week.
The FXD1/2012/20 re-opened in May 2025 emerged the week’s top mover with KES 14.62Bn after its yield to maturity (YTM) rose 24.5bps from 12.7765% to 13.0215% against an accepted YTM of 13.6489% in the primary.
IFB1/1018/15OF 12.500% coupon came second after trading KES 8.20Bn while trading at a discount of 12.2870% in the week. IFB1/2022/19 paper, re-opened in August 2025, took third top mover position with KES 5.40Bn while its YTM moved up from 13.1804% to 13.2204% against that of 13.9991 accepted in the primary auction.
In the coming week, we expect an improvement in the secondary market especially as from Tuesday, 23rd September after the primary settlement scheduled to happen by close of Monday, 22nd September.
[Graph in pdf]
The primary auction saw a total of KES 97.29Bn subscribed while the government accepting KES 61.44Bn to represent a 153.6% performance against a target of KES 40 billion. The weighted average rate for accepted bid was within our conservative bidding level for FXD1/2018/020 and within the aggressive bidding rate for the FXD1/2022/025 paper.
[Graph in pdf]
Yield Curve
The yield curve experienced minimal movements especially the short-end and the middle curve section while the long end shifted down on impact from the re-opened FXD1/2018/25 whose auction happened in the week.
Some short end paper saw their yields edge up minimally at below 25.0bps, especially, around the 2-year, the 6-year and the 12-year papers.
In the last week of September, we forecast a general downshift of the yield curve especially around theFXD1/2018/020 (12-5years) and FXD1/2022/025 (22.2-years) which enters secondary market trading on Monday, 22nd September 2025.
[Graph in pdf]
Interbank
Interbank rate dropped marginally in the week from 9.46% to 9.43% supported by low liquidity demand in the market. This saw the average interbank also decline minimally from 9.46% to 9.45%.
Liquidity demand however dropped by half from KES 24.15Bn to KES 12.22Bn to pull down the week’s average demand by 63.2% from KES 15.01Bn to KES 5.52Bn.
Bank excess reserves also contracted at 46.1% from KES 20.60Bn to KES 11.10Bn impacted by tax payments for value added tax (VAT), excise duty, with-holding tax and instalments which happened on Friday, 19th September. These taxes’ payments normally happen on 20th of every month.
[Graph in pdf]
Treasury Bills
The week’s auction was undersubscribed at 22.96Bn with KES 22.72Bn being accepted to account for a 98.9% acceptance and 94.7% performance against a weekly target of KES 24.00Bn.
The undersubscription followed low rollover redemptions from of KES 21.00Bn out of the KES 21.19Bn maturing on Monday, 22nd September 2025.
Returns on investment across the three papers dropped narrowly at 2.6bps, 0.1bps and 2.2bps to 7.9461%, to 8.0098% and to 9.5366% for the 91-, 182- and 364-day papers respectively. In the coming week, we expect a further undersubscription following a low maturities of KES 9.98Bn due on Monday, 29th September 2025.
[Graph in pdf]
Currency
The shilling further stabilized at KES 129.24 per US dollar both on average and on week on week comparisons.
The shilling remain supported by sufficient forex reserves which[Graph in pdf] stood at USD 10,861Mn, sufficient for 4.8 months of import cover.
This was further supported by diaspora remittances which hit a high of USD 427.20Mn in August 2025, representing a 4.2% month on month growth from that of USD 410.09Mn receipted in July 2025. Cumulative forex remittances inflows for the 12-months ending August 2025 were up 9.4% to USD 5.08Bn.
