Once again, the indices on the Nairobi Securities Exchange took off in separate directions. Trading came to a conclusion with the NSE 20-Share Index closing at 4124.53, down 1.21 points. The All-share index performance was up 0.14 points to close at 91.44.

HIGHEST VOLUMES

Massive rebranding (and other factors) seems to have paid off for Britam as they took top spot today with 2.28 Million shares traded. Coming in second place was Kenya Commercial Bank which traded 1.73, a huge drop from the over 5 million shares it traded last week. Safaricom Limited traded 1.53 million shares and scooped third place. The market capitalization however, stands at KES 176 Billion. Equity Bank graced the top volumes platform with 1.33 million shares changing hands, making it the fourth highest counter by volume for the day.

COUNTER WATCH

• Standard Chartered Bank - The counter maintained the price of its previous close at KES 225. Volumes traded sunk to 600 from over 128,000 making the total money transacted KES 135,000. The buzz around the stock since the rights issue up until the step down of the bank’s chairman of the board Mr. Kiboro seems to have died. His move comes exactly one week after the close of the rights issue by the bank looking to raise KES 3.2 Billion. There has been no mention of what his severance package was.
• Uchumi – It was one of the top gainers today having closed at KES 19.90, a gain of 3.65% from last week Friday’s close. It was also a direct switch from the top loser list where it featured on Friday. The increase may be in light of the announcement of the intention to have a rights issue, its second one since 2006. 100 million shares will be up for grabs and may sell at KES 13 so that the supermarket raises KES 1.3 Billion for expansion.