Foreign Investors offload stocks to reverse previous week’s gains
Foreign investors registered increased profit-taking activities at the Nairobi Securities Exchange(NSE) last week. The offloading of stock was most prominent on key counters with the results seeing the market capitalisation drop by Sh104.6 billion to land at Sh2.11 trillion.
According to market data, non-local investors pushed their net sales to Sh1.3 billion as per the closing of last week. This was an increase compared to the previous week’s Sh501 million made from share sales made.
The cashing in was prominent after investors dumped stock on key counter Safaricom after its drop back to Sh28.50 on last Friday. The telco’s share price had earlier risen above Sh30 two weeks before the decline of stocks to avoid further losses.
“Profit-taking took centre stage mostly by foreign investors concentrating on Safaricom. The general market exuded bearishness in close reflection to global equity markets during the week which saw rising Covid-19 cases in countries such as India and the US,” said Genghis Capital’s weekly report.
Safaricom stocks last week further saw net foreign sales totalling Sh705 million to occasion the jostle for its Sh1.40 a share dividend payout.
Other key counters to also record high new foreign sales within the last week also include ABSA(Sh211.4 million), BAT Kenya(Sh83.5 million), EABL(Sh61.2 million) and Equity(Sh135.7 million).