Everyday Kenyans Taking Stock In a Growing African Economy

It is the kind of paradoxical confidence found in the bustling lobby of Suntra Investment Bank on a recent afternoon, where Arnolda Nyangweso was already making her second visit of the day.

"I have something telling me to buy," she said, explaining that she had come for KCB Bank shares in the morning and decided to return for more in the afternoon.

Traipsing in and out were the soapmaker and the government employee, a taxi driver, a hairdresser, a cellphone vendor, a retired farmer and others who comprise the more prosaic, if still difficult, version of life that predominates here.

Nyangweso grew up in rural Kenya, where her parents were small farmers. She and her siblings were able to attend university in Nairobi, and Nyangweso eventually got into the real estate business. After a friend introduced her to the stock exchange, she began investing two years ago.

A large percentage of new investors are women, who tend to drive financial decisions in households, just as American women do.

"When I became a mother, I saw that you have to save," said Nyangweso, who is 28 and wore a finely tailored lavender suit. "I want my son to have a good life."

After a friend introduced her to the stock exchange, she began investing two years ago, and these days she reads newspaper stock tables every morning.

The Nairobi Stock Exchange is small potatoes compared, for instance, with Johannesburg's, which is valued at more than $500 billion and is among the world's 20 largest.

The Nairobi exchange occupies several black-and-white checkered floors of a new downtown skyscraper overlooking the rusted tin roofs of the Kenyan capital's old colonial buildings and bustling streets.

Founded in 1954, the exchange was for decades so small and exclusive that brokers traded shares over tea in the lobby of the old, wrought-iron-clad Stanley Hotel nearby. During the 1990s, the market collapsed along with the Kenyan economy, but things began to turn around after the 2002 presidential elections, during which longtime ruler Daniel arap Moi conceded power to Mwai Kibaki.

The peaceful transition encouraged investors, including many Kenyans abroad, to return to the market. Kibaki also made some key economic policy changes, such as dramatically increasing revenue collection, which decreased government borrowing and allowed for lower interest rates.

With Kenya's economy growing by about 6 percent annually, Kibaki has also provided tax incentives to companies that go public. Several companies have, including state-owned corporations such as KenGen, whose public offering last year touched off a wave of excitement across the country, with people standing in hours-long lines to buy shares.