Influence Of Macro-Economic Variables On Stock Market Prices For Companies Quoted At Nairobi Securities Exchange

ABSTRACT

Stock prices fluctuations for quoted companies occur daily due to both company specific

variables like company earnings with corresponding dividend policies, and multiple macroeconomic

variables. This study sought evidence supporting the existence of influence of the

selected macro-economic variables of: foreign exchange rate of hard currencies, interest rate and

inflation rate on share prices fluctuations based on the weighted average monthly data from

January 2008 to December 2012 for the companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in

Kenya. The influence of selected macro-economic variables on stock exchange provide

important implications for monetary policy, risk management practices, financial securities

valuation and government policy towards financial markets. The study utilsed secondary data

that was obtained from: Central Bank of Kenya, Institute of statistical Kenya and Nairobi

Securities Exchange. To investigate the effect of the selected macro-economic variables on share

prices of the companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, simple and multi-variate

regressions analysis was used. For all of the quoted companies it was desirable to find if the

stock prices fluctuations are predominantly due to the selected macro-economic variables. The

Nairobi Securities Exchange may derive great benefit through more investors raising new capital

in the share market when stocks are in great demand, and more extensional investment of

companies by raising additional capital through stock splits or issuing more shares out of their

authorized share capital. The study found that interest rate had a predominant effect on stock

market price indices as compared to the other macro-economic variables. Interest rate, exchange

rate for both the Euro and US Dollar had a negative effect on stock market indices for companies

quoted on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. When the Kenya shilling depreciates the stock

market indices gain in points. The inflation rate had a negative effect on stock market

performance indicating that higher levels of inflation rate result in lower stock market indices in

Kenya. Other macro-economic variables would also have impact on stock market indices for

companies quoted on the Nairobi Securities Exchange since the predictor model did not account

for all variables as it had a low R2 of 15.1 %.