Nairobi Securities Exchange — NSE 25 Slips 0.35% as 2025 Results Shake Insurers and Media
The NSE 25 fell 0.35% on Tuesday as 2025 earnings drove trading. Results from Jubilee Holdings, Sanlam Allianz, WPP Scangroup and Nation Media reset sector expectations against a weaker KES and Brent at $104.7 a barrel.
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Kenyan equities closed lower on Tuesday April 28, 2026, but the more important signal came from annual earnings. The NSE 25 fell 0.35% to 5,715.21 and the NSE 20 dropped 0.55% to 3,569.5, while a heavy batch of 2025 audited results triggered sharp moves across insurers, media names and selected industrial stocks. The session also underlined how exposed the Kenya stock market remains to foreign exchange: USD/KES rose 0.98% to 129.35, increasing imported-cost pressure for companies exposed to claims inflation, fuel and hard-currency inputs.
- USD/KES: 129.35 (+0.98%) ; Brent: $104.7/bbl (-3.3% on the day)
Market context: earnings, not broad risk appetite, drove NSE Kenya today
The picture on the NSE Kenya today was weaker on the surface than underneath. Decliners outnumbered advancers by 30 to 19, yet turnover was concentrated in a handful of liquid counters and in stocks that released results. The busiest names included Equity Group, down 0.7% on traded value of , , flat on , I&M Holdings up on , then Jubilee Holdings on and KCB Group down on .
That concentration matters for two reasons. First, investors stayed in liquid names while multiple audited statements hit the tape on the same day, according to official NSE announcements. Second, Safaricom’s flat close helped cushion the broader market. That remains a defining feature of the Nairobi stock exchange today: because of its structural index weight, Safaricom and the M-Pesa ecosystem still absorb part of the pressure when financials and insurers come under selling.
The macro backdrop was not neutral. Brent at $104.7 a barrel, even after a 3.3% daily drop, remains elevated for a net oil importer such as Kenya. For insurers, that can feed into higher motor repair costs and larger insured values; for consumer and logistics businesses, it keeps margin pressure alive. At the same time, a weaker shilling raises the cost of imported inputs and can worsen either financial charges or technical costs for companies with foreign-currency exposure.
2025 earnings: insurance names diverge as investors reassess quality of growth
The clearest thread of the session was the market’s response to audited 2025 numbers, with immediate price effects. Jubilee Holdings, which sat at the center of the day’s editorial brief, fell 6.9% to KES 365.25 on traded value of KES 43.9 million. Even without reproducing every line item from the audited statement here, the price reaction suggests investors quickly reset expectations around earnings quality, insurance revenue momentum and the group’s sensitivity to financial-market conditions.
Jubilee’s drop spilled into the broader insurance space, though not uniformly. Sanlam Allianz Holdings Kenya fell 3.4% to KES 9.18, while Britam Holdings rose 3.8% to KES 12.45. That contrast is important. The market did not sell “insurance” as a single block; it differentiated between names. When one insurer loses nearly 7% and a peer gains almost 4% on the same day, the message is less about one macro shock than about balance-sheet quality, earnings visibility and execution credibility.
Foreign exchange is part of that story. With USD/KES at 129.35, insurers face pressure through several channels: imported auto parts become more expensive, some medical costs rise with imported equipment and treatments, and investment portfolios can become more volatile if real rates tighten. In that setting, 2025 earnings are not being read in isolation. They are being filtered through an operating environment where imported inflation remains a live risk, even with Brent lower on the day.
Media, consumer and industrial names: audited accounts reset the pecking order
Another pocket of volatility came from media stocks. Standard Group posted one of the day’s steepest declines, down 7.0% to KES 5.86, while WPP Scangroup lost 1.7% to KES 2.30 after releasing its audited 2025 results. By contrast, Nation Media Group edged up 0.3% to KES 14.15 after its own earnings release. Again, investors were discriminating rather than indiscriminately selling the sector. The market was effectively ranking names on advertising resilience, cost discipline and the ability to monetise audience in an economy where marketing budgets remain tied to domestic growth.
Weakness in selected consumer and industrial counters added to the picture. Unga Group fell 3.5% to KES 28.0, Sameer Africa dropped 4.5% to KES 17.1, Limuru Tea lost 4.0% to KES 480.0, and Olympia Capital slid 5.7% to KES 7.24. Those moves were not just about earnings digestion. They also reflected pressure from commodities and FX. Wheat rose 3.9% to 645.75, cotton gained 3.2% to 79.82, while coffee fell 3.5%. For companies exposed to agricultural inputs or regional supply chains, those swings can alter margin expectations faster than sales volumes do.
On the other side of the board, a few names held up well. Crown Paints Kenya rose 6.6% to KES 56.5, the best gain of the session, while Kenya Airways advanced 3.9% to KES 6.9. For the airline, the daily drop in Brent offers tactical relief on fuel, even if oil above $100 remains historically high. For Crown Paints, the move may reflect confidence in pricing power or volume resilience, though the weaker shilling still poses a risk for imported raw materials.
What trading flows and NSE announcements say about market structure
Beyond earnings, the exchange itself released several market-structure announcements that matter for the medium term. The NSE announced a new banking sector index, the admission of Fintrust Securities as an authorised dealer in the fixed-income market, and the upcoming listing of a Satrix MSCI World Feeder ETF to give local investors access to global markets. According to NSE statements, the aim is to broaden retail access and deepen the market.
That matters for readers tracking NSE share prices every day. In a session where the headline indices fell by less than 1% but individual stocks moved by 4% to 7%, broader listed-product choice could gradually reduce the market’s dependence on a small number of domestic large caps. We saw a similar pattern in Bourse de Nairobi — EGAD s’envole de 9,6% malgré un marché divisé, le NSE 25 reste dans le vert, where stock dispersion had already become more important than the direction of the benchmark itself.
Outlook: more audited numbers, bank comparisons and the shilling in focus
The next phase for the market will be less about one-day price moves and more about how investors compare 2025 audited earnings across sectors. Banks will be judged on margin resilience in a still-tight rate environment, Safaricom on transaction growth through M-Pesa and the pace of its Ethiopia expansion, and import-dependent businesses on how much of the weaker shilling they can absorb. The market will also watch the rollout of the new banking index and the Satrix MSCI World Feeder ETF, alongside the path of USD/KES at 129.35 and oil above $100 a barrel. Those two variables are now running through Kenyan corporate earnings far more directly than a single trading session might suggest.
