Good tidings as large stocks rally in January

Kenya’s stocks surged in January to lift all the key indices of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) up by between 1 and 6%, pointing to expected positive growth for the market in 2018.

“In January , the equities market was on an upward trend with the All Share Index (NASI), NSE 25 and NSE 20 gaining 5.5 percent, 5.4 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively,” Cytonn, a Nairobi-based investment firm, said on Monday in a note.

The bourse’s surge during the month was driven by gains in large capitalisation stocks such as Barclays Bank, Safaricom, Diamond Trust Bank and Equity Group, which gained by between 6.8% and 10.5%.

Cytonn forecasts that growth at the market this year will be driven by a number of factors, which include corporate earnings, investor sentiment, interest rates, new listings and regulation.

“We expect corporate earnings growth of 12 percent in 2018, higher than the expected growth of 8 percent for 2017, boosted by a more stable and favourable business operating environment,” said Cytonn.

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The bourse, according to the investment firm, will this year register increased foreign inflows from the negative position in 2017.

This would mainly be supported by a stable business operating environment and long term investors who enter the market looking to take advantage of the current low valuations in some sections of the bourse.