Eight of the 11 NSE listed banks have shed value this year. This comes as the banking the sector dropped by nearly Sh. 53.4 billion in market capitalization to stand at Sh. 605 billion since January.
Among the top 10 companies by market capitalisation, the biggest losers include KCB, Barclays and Cooperative Bank.
Besides Safaricom, the EABL, Bamburi and BAT, the other most valuable stocks at the bourse are Equity, KCB, Cooperative, StanChart, Barclays and DTB.
Compared to the beginning of the year, Cooperative Bank’s 12 per cent decline in value from Sh88 billion to less than Sh77.3 billion has seen it get displaced by BAT Kenya as the fifth most valuable company at the NSE.
Barclays has slipped down to ninth position from seventh in value after its share price dropped from Sh13.60 to Sh10, giving it a Sh54.3 billion market capitalisation from Sh73 billion in January.
KCB has shed Sh33.2 billion in value this year to stand at Sh99 billion while Equity Bank’s value is down by Sh2.8 billion to Sh148.1 billion.
This means that Equity Bank has been able to widen the gap with KCB as the most valuable lender in the bourse to Sh49 billion from Sh18.5 billion in January.
Equity Bank has been attracting heavy foreign investor purchases this year, as opposed to KCB which has seen investors make net sales on the stock.
