For a third consecutive day at the NSE, Safaricom was the most traded share with 2.55 million shares down from yesterday’s 16.54 million shares while CIC Insurance Group was second with 2.04 million shares traded from 5.70 million shares yesterday. Kenya Commercial Bank was the third most active counter with 1.41 million shares traded from 818,500 shares yesterday and fourth was Barclays Bank with 1.38 million shares traded today. The fifth most active share was Mumias Sugar with 818,700 shares traded.

COUNTER WATCHLIST

• Athi River Mining – On the day it emerged that the company’s CEO has emerged with an 18 percent stake in the company worth 3.5 billion shillings after a re-distribution of the company’s shareholding (Business Daily), shares in Kenya’s second largest cement firm closed up for a second day gaining 0.51 percent from to close at KES 199.00 from KES 198.00 yesterday.
• Equity Bank – Shares in one of Kenya’s biggest lenders today remained at their second highest price of this year at KES 22.00 during today’s trading.  Speculation that the bank’s earnings for the first half of this year will increase are driving the share’s performance according to a Bloomberg news report.
• Barclays Bank – Shares in Kenya’s second ranked bank today topped yesterday’s high to close at a new one-year high of KES 13.95 from KES 13.94 yesterday.
• Olympia Capital Holdings – Today the investment company’s shares closed at the same price of KES 3.60 similar to yesterday. Olympia Capital is seeking approval from shareholders to make investments in the construction sector of South Sudan according to a report in the Business Daily today.