MARKETS REVIEW : A Double-Edged September for the NSE

Good evening!

It's Brian from The Kenyan Wall Street…

We are mid-way through the month of September and we analyze how the Nairobi stock market has performed so far…

Also, Equity Bank eyes Ethiopia hoping to be among the first foreign lenders in the country's open markets experiment

Top Stories

MARKETS REVIEW : A Double-Edged September for the NSE 

By Harry Njuguna

Foreign investors, once tempted by Kenyan equities, have in September staged a brisk retreat, yanking KSh 1.7 billion from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) even as the market enjoys its most intoxicating rally in more than a decade.

The contradiction is striking: locals push prices higher with feverish conviction while offshore funds quietly pocket their gains, Safaricom and the banks serving as the favored exit ramps.

The indices speak of a market in bloom…the NSE 20 up by half this year, the All Share boasting its finest run since birth, capitalization swelling by nearly a trillion shillings. The breadth dazzles too: eleven counters have more than doubled, led by unlikely phoenixes like Sameer Africa and Home Afrika, with Kenya Power nearly tripling its value since last year.

Yet the rally’s brightness throws shadows…as Umeme, NBV, and even Bamburi languish in red. What emerges is a market both triumphant and tremulous.

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Equity Bank's Ethiopian Gambit

By Harry Njuguna 

Equity Bank is inching closer to Addis Ababa, its chief executive James Mwangi emerging from talks with Ethiopia’s investment commissioner buoyed by promises of support in a market that has only recently pried open its vaults to foreign lenders.

The allure is clear: over 120 million people, a banking penetration among the lowest in Africa, and a government now coaxing outsiders to test the waters after years of sealed doors.

Yet Equity is hardly alone at the gate. KCB, the largest bank in Kenya by assets, already ensconced in a representative office since 2015 and has floated plans to buy into a local player and secure up to 40 percent.

What follows is a contest of timing and nerve, as East Africa’s two biggest banks weigh how best to carve space in Ethiopia’s freshly liberalized financial frontier.

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Banking on Green Growth

By Chelsy Maina

Kenyan lenders have not only met but nudged past their MSME loan pledge, channeling KSh 153 billion into small businesses even as they reposition that pipeline toward a newly mapped KSh 19 trillion trove of nature-related opportunities. The vision, dressed in the language of green bonds, blended finance, and biodiversity recovery, suggests that banking’s next frontier may be less about balance sheets than about soil, forests, and fisheries, which already account for nearly half of national output.

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Hunger on the Horizon

By Brian Nzomo

Kenya’s mid-year rains delivered a temporary reprieve, easing hunger for nearly two million people, yet the forecasts now hint at a harder season ahead, with La Niña and a negative Indian Ocean Dipole threatening to cut the short rains short.

While some highland fields yielded better than expected, much of the coast and arid north saw crops falter by as much as 70% and maize prices in certain markets spiked by a fifth, squeezing already fragile households.

The IPC warns that by January, 2.1 million Kenyans could slip into acute food insecurity, their plight worsened by suspended safety nets, empty nutrition pipelines, and shrinking humanitarian coverage.

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More On the News Desk…

NSE Gainers & Losers 

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For up-to-date market insights and data from the NSE, join our Whatsapp channel here »»»»»

Across Borders

🇸🇩 Sudan. Washington has blacklisted Sudan’s finance minister, Gebreil Ibrahim, and a militia tied to Iran, even as regional bodies press for peace in a war that has already consumed 150,000 lives and displaced millions. (By Fred Obura)

🇨🇩 The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has begun vaccinating frontline health workers and people exposed to Ebola in the southern Kasai province, as officials race to contain the country’s 16th outbreak of the deadly virus. (By Brian Nzomo)

🇦🇱 Albania has appointed the world’s first artificial intelligence “minister” to oversee public procurement, in a bold move that Prime Minister Edi Rama says will eliminate corruption and speed up government operations. (By Chelsy Maina)

Opinion 

Financing Africa’s Future Means Fixing Risk Misperception

By Mercy Randa

Foreign aid may be thinning out, but Africa need not resign itself to dependence. The continent’s real handicap is not default but the stubborn perception of risk that drives up borrowing costs and stifles investment. Studies show Africa’s infrastructure loans default less than those in Europe or the Americas, yet governments and entrepreneurs are forced to pay interest rates two to five times higher, a distortion that drains public coffers and inflates household bills. Correcting this mis-pricing could unlock cheaper capital and recast Africa not as a debtor of last resort, but as a reliable frontier of growth.

Read this article here »»»»»

On Your Watchlist

In this insightful interview, Eric Asuma, founder of the Kenyan Wall street speaks with Wayne Hennessy-Barrett, the CEO of 4G Capital, who shares the company's incredible journey from a single branch in 2013 to a leading fintech that has dispersed over US$620 million in loans

Last Week’s Top Hits

♦️ Economy. Kenya will raise nearly two-thirds of its net borrowing this year from the domestic market, including proceeds from privatisation, according to the Annual Borrowing Plan. (By Harry Njuguna)

♦️ Sour Deals. Seven years after the Catholic Archdiocese of Kisumu signed off on a property transaction worth hundreds of millions of shillings, the church, a car dealership, and Ecobank are still engaged in a bruising courtroom fight. (By Fred Obura)

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