Nairobi Securities Exchange — Car & General Gains 2.7% on Results as NSE 25 Slumps 32.85%
Car & General Kenya released its 2025 audited results and the stock rose 2.7% to 308 KES, even as decliners beat advancers 35 to 16. The session also featured earnings from Safaricom, TotalEnergies Marketing Kenya and Nation Media.
|6 min read
Car and General Kenya stood out on Monday, 7 September 2026, rising 2.7% to 308 KES after releasing its consolidated audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025, even as the NSE 25 fell a striking 32.85% to 2,742.64 points. That divergence mattered: in a session where most stocks were sold, the market still found room to reward an industrial name tied to equipment, mobility and productive activity.
The broader tape was weak. Market breadth closed at 16 gainers, 35 losers and 5 unchanged out of 56 listed counters tracked in the session. Among the steepest declines, Kenya Re-Insurance dropped 7.4% to 4.4 KES, KenGen lost 3.5% to 11 KES, and the Satrix MSCI World Feeder ETF slumped 21.6% to 980 KES. On the upside, Eaagads jumped 9.6% to 29.6 KES, Standard Group gained 8.8% to 6.2 KES, and Africa Mega Agricorp rose 6.1% to 238.25 KES.
Market context: weak breadth, heavy macro, selective buying
The session unfolded against a less supportive macro backdrop for Kenyan equities. The USD/KES rate rose to 129.37, a 0.72% daily move that increases the local-currency cost of imported inputs for industrial, energy and technology businesses. For a company like Car & General, whose operations are linked to equipment distribution, vehicles, generators and mobility solutions, the exchange rate is not a side issue. A weaker shilling can lift reported revenue in KES terms, but it can also squeeze margins if imported inventory and financing costs rise faster than selling prices.
Oil was another important part of the story. Brent crude held at $96.28 per barrel, up 1.7% over the week. For Kenya, a net fuel importer, that level feeds through into transport, logistics, manufacturing and household costs. That helps explain why the market did not reward earnings releases uniformly. Investors had to weigh company-specific numbers against a still-expensive external cost base, especially for businesses exposed to freight, power and imported raw materials.
Trading activity remained concentrated in the market’s largest names. Equity Group led turnover at 325.9 million KES, followed by Diamond Trust Bank Kenya at 155.7 million KES, Safaricom at 96.7 million KES, I&M Holdings at 43.9 million KES, and KenGen at 40.3 million KES. That ranking shows that even on an industrial earnings day, liquidity on the Nairobi stock exchange today still flowed primarily through banks and telecoms, which continue to anchor price discovery on the bourse.
Car & General Kenya financial results: why the stock outperformed
According to official Nairobi Securities Exchange announcements, Car & General Kenya released its consolidated audited financial statements on 7 September 2026 for the period ended 31 December 2025. The stock responded with a 2.7% gain, placing it among the day’s better performers despite a market dominated by sellers.
That reaction matters more than the headline move alone. In Kenya’s industrial segment, investors have spent several reporting cycles looking for evidence that companies can navigate higher funding costs, currency volatility and imported inflation without destroying profitability. The fact that Car & General rose while the NSE 25 dropped 32.85% suggests the market viewed the results as sufficiently solid, or at least sufficiently reassuring, to justify relative re-rating. In other words, the earnings release acted as a company-specific catalyst in a market that was otherwise unwilling to give most stocks the benefit of the doubt.
Car & General’s business mix helps explain the interest. The group is exposed to areas that often serve as early indicators of real-economy momentum: industrial equipment, mobility, backup power, logistics-linked demand and after-sales services. When a stock with that profile is bought after results, it can signal that some investors see a gradual normalization in business and consumer activity, even if monetary and currency conditions remain tight. The move was only 2.7%, but in a session with 35 decliners, it was meaningful.
A crowded earnings day: Safaricom, TotalEnergies, Nation Media
Car & General was not the only reporting name. The 7 September announcement flow also included audited results from Safaricom for the year ended 31 March 2026, TotalEnergies Marketing Kenya for the year ended 31 December 2025, and Nation Media Group for full-year 2025. That made the session fundamentally driven, even if the index finished sharply lower.
Safaricom deserves special attention in any read of NSE Kenya today because of its outsized weight in market capitalization and liquidity. The stock fell 1.2% on the day, with 96.7 million KES in traded value. Without the detailed income statement and balance-sheet figures in the data provided, caution is necessary, but the decline suggests the market either took profits or judged that the results were not enough to offset ongoing questions around Ethiopia monetization, M-Pesa growth and the impact of foreign exchange on network and technology costs. For readers tracking the safaricom share price today, the takeaway is straightforward: even a major earnings release does not automatically override macro pressure.
TotalEnergies Marketing Kenya held up better, rising 3.4% to 50.25 KES. That move fits a backdrop of Brent at $96.28, which tends to support nominal revenue for fuel marketers, even if margins remain regulated and operationally sensitive. In a market where expensive energy hurts many sectors, stocks directly linked to the petroleum value chain can sometimes provide a partial hedge.
Nation Media Group also reported audited 2025 results in a difficult environment for media and consumer-facing businesses. Standard Group rose 8.8%, while ScanGroup fell 2.4% to 2 KES, underlining how sharply the market is differentiating among communications and advertising-linked names based on balance-sheet strength, revenue visibility and margin defense.
What the rest of the tape says about the Kenya stock market
Beyond the headline earnings releases, several sector signals emerged. Express Kenya, which also published its 2025 financial statements, advanced 5.7% to 7.4 KES, while Crown Paints Kenya gained 3.6% to 65 KES. Together with Car & General’s rise, those moves point to a pocket of resilience in industrial and domestic activity-linked counters. That stands in contrast to weakness in utilities and parts of financials.
In banking, the heavy turnover in Equity Group and Diamond Trust Bank shows that investors remain focused on large lending franchises at a time when cost of risk, bond yields and KES liquidity remain central valuation drivers. The absence of KCB Group from the top turnover list does not change the broader picture: on the Kenya stock market, banks remain a macro barometer, just as Safaricom does for digital consumption. Readers following the Equity Bank share price or the KCB share price are usually looking for the same clues — credit growth, asset quality and regional exposure across Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC and Rwanda.
