Browsing: Nairobi Securities Exchange

Interesting market developments encircled WPP ScanGroup in this review period. The counter’s share price has been on a rally albeit a sharp decline in its bottom line (-1,191.1% y/y) in the just-released FY20 results.

The uptick – that comes after a sequential diminution – is on the back of the exoneration of the suspended senior management that boosted investor confidence given the fact that there was no adverse effect on the counter’s financial performance, position and/or operations linked to the aforementioned. We opine that the rally will continue in the near term to 2Q21 levels as investors accumulate on the earlier exited positions.

Africa Hiking Taxes Drive Fuel Prices North

As of July 1, price for petroleum products in Tanzania increased drastically owing to the amendments outlined in the country’s new Finance Act as passed by parliament.  A huge chunk of the money you pay at the pump goes to the government in taxes; in fact the government takes anything between 30 and 40 percent in form of taxes, levies and regulatory fees.

Nonetheless, Tanzania’s Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (Ewura) still attributed the price hike to global trends, in part admitting to the tax effect and in part deflecting it to global trends.

East African Trends: A year after Corona virus, where are the stocks?

The month of March marked one year after most countries globally locked up their people, introduced tough restrictions on movement and introduced ways of containing the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19). For East Africa, this has been a tough outing with thousands sick, and millions affected economically. The countries in the region have also reacted differently, with Rwanda and Kenya being on the extreme cautious path, while Tanzania and Burundi have applied the Laissez-Faire approach. 

Stocks in the region have been hit hard with the regional bourses shrinking significantly, as well as a loss in interest by foreign investors. The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) seems to have been hard hit with an unprecedented bear run. According to the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) end-of-year statistical bulletin, all indices at the Nairobi bourse performed poorly, with net foreign outflow hitting KSh28.63 billion ($260.9M) compared to a net foreign inflow of KSh1.38 billion ($12.6M) in 2019.