At the close of trading at the NSE yesterday, the NSE 20-share index stood at 3,627.64 while the All-share index stood at 78.20. The total shares traded during the day stood at 9.085 million equating to an equity turnover of KES 166.82 million.

In today’s trading we will be watching the following shares:

• Sasini: Last week the tea and coffee grower announced a 71% drop in profit for the first half of its financial period. The KES 178 million profit was attributed to the higher cost of inputs and lower international prices. We will observe the performance of the share today to see what effect this will have on the share price. In yesterday’s trading the share appreciated by 5 cents but it remains in our watch list.
• Kenya Airways: Today, the company was expected to announce the performance of the rights shares, which has been postponed to 6th June. It is anticipated that the shares will be fully oversubscribed and the announcement would have a positive impact on the share price. With such sentiments, the share price should appreciate in expectation of the positive results of the rights issue. This appreciation may later be offset as the increased number of shares would dilute the share price. In the mean time, we will keep an eye on the share.
• East African Portland Cement: on Monday the share was one of yesterday’s big gainers, up 6.67% to close KES 4 up at KES 64. Yesterday the share remained stagnant at KES 64 per share. We will continue to watch this counter to see whether the increase was a momentary jump or the beginning of an upward trend.
• Uchumi Supermarkets Limited: at the beginning of last week the share appeared to be very promising gaining consistently over the first few days. However, by the end of the week the share price has dropped drastically to close at KES 17.20 down from KES 19.50 at some point during the week. The share yesterday opened trading at KES 15.50 and closed at KES 16.70. This comes as good news for shareholders, including ourselves (see the PesaPortfolio).