NSE’s gender shift: Why women investors are increasing at the stock market
A member of staff at the Nairobi Securities Exchange on the trading floor in 2019.The gap is closing: more Kenyan women are buying into companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
What you need to know:
- More women are entering Kenya’s stock market, but disparities in ownership and value of shares remain significant.
- As female participation rises at NSE, understanding how investors earn from shares becomes increasingly important for financial growth.
The latest report from the Capital Markets Authority shows a steady rise in the number of women investing in shares of companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
In the first quarter of 2025 (January–March), 634,912 women held 3.36 billion shares, compared with 1.24 million men who held 10.89 billion shares. By the third quarter (July–September), the number of women investors had increased to 654,496, holding 3.52 billion shares. Men investors also rose to 1.29 million but shares dropped to 10.79 billion.
While the growth signals progress in women’s participation in equity markets, a persistent gap remains in both the number of investors and the volume of shares held.
So, how do women equity investors actually make money?
First, as equity investors, they buy shares in companies listed on the NSE, where trading takes place. For a company to be listed on the NSE, it must be licensed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA).
According to the NSE website on April 3, 2026, there are 66 listed companies across 13 sectors. These include agriculture (six), automobile and accessories (one), banking (11), commercial and services (11) – where Nation Media Group is listed – and construction and allied (five).
Others are in energy and petroleum (five), insurance (six), investment (five), investment services (one), manufacturing and allied (10), telecommunications and technology (one), real estate investment trusts (two) and an exchange-traded fund.
There is a clear procedure for investing in shares of listed companies. For instance, when Kenya Pipeline Company announced an initial public offering of 11,812,644,350 ordinary shares owned by the government, it required investors to have a valid central depository system (CDS) account. A CDS account can be opened through a licensed stockbroker or investment bank, which are themselves licensed by the CMA.
As of April 3, 026, there were 19 licensed investment banks listed on the CMA’s website. “When you buy a share, you are buying part ownership in a company,” Rina Hicks, an investment banker and operations director at Faida Investment Bank, one of the CMA-listed firms, explained in an earlier interview.
“If the company makes a profit and distributes it through dividends, you benefit because you receive cash payments. The second way you earn from owning shares is through what we call capital gains. If the company performs well and the share price rises from Sh9 to, say, Sh9.20 or Sh9.50, you can sell and make a gain. That’s the second way investors benefit.”
