Audited 26 Jul 2026·Last updated 28 Oct 2026·6 citations·Tier 1·0 uses

NSE Returns Calculator

Work out the return on Nairobi Securities Exchange shares in KSh: price gain, dividends after withholding tax, broker costs, total and annualised return.

NSE Returns Calculator

Total gain or loss (after any dividend withholding entered)
11,000.00
The overall gain or loss in KSh: net sale value plus dividends after withholding, minus the amount invested.
Gross purchase value
37,000.00
Net invested amount (including buy costs)
37,000.00
Net sale or current value
45,600.00
Dividend income
2,400.00
Dividend income after withholding
2,400.00
Price gain or loss
8,600.00
Price return
23.24
Dividend return
6.49
Total return
29.73
Annualized total return
13.90

Background.

Did the shares actually make money, and how much a year? Take 2,000 shares bought at KSh 18.50 and now trading at KSh 22.80. The price move alone is worth KSh 8,600 on KSh 37,000 invested. Over the two years the company also paid KSh 1.20 a share in dividends, another KSh 2,400 in cash. Counting both, the position has gained KSh 11,000, a total return of 29.73%. Spread over 730 days that is 13.90% a year, not the 14.86% you get by halving, because returns compound.

Dividends are the part investors most often leave out. Many companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange pay regular cash dividends, and for a share whose price has barely moved they can be most of the return. Leave them out and a steady payer looks like a poor investment; count them in without the tax that was withheld and it looks better than it was. The calculator keeps the two sources apart: a price return, a dividend return after any withholding you enter, and the total of the two.

Costs come off as well. Every buy or sell through a stockbroker carries brokerage commission and statutory levies, itemised on the contract note. Buy-side charges are added to the money you put in, and sell-side charges are taken from what you get back, so a round trip shaves a little off both ends of the return.

Everything is entered by hand. The prices you paid and received are on your contract notes or CDS account statement, current prices are in the NSE's daily price list or your broker's app, and the dividends you were paid are on the registrar's dividend advice. Nothing is fetched live, and nothing here forecasts what the share will do next: the result describes a holding period that has already happened, or the paper value of one that is still open.

What is nse returns calculator?

Total return is everything an investment earned over the time you held it, price change plus income, as a share of the money you put in. For a share listed on the NSE that means the difference between what you paid (including charges) and what you sold for or could sell for now (less charges), plus the cash dividends paid to you while you held it. Expressed over the actual holding period it is a holding-period return. Converting it to a one-year compound rate gives the annualised return, the figure that lets you compare a two-year holding with a seven-month one, or with a fixed deposit or Treasury bill held for a different length of time.

How to use this calculator.

  1. Enter the number of shares held for the whole period. If a bonus issue or split changed the count, use the new number and the adjusted buy price described in the FAQ.
  2. Enter the buy price per share from your purchase contract note, and the price you sold at or, for shares you still hold, the latest closing price from the NSE price list or your broker.
  3. Add up every dividend per share paid to you while you held the shares, interim and final, as declared before tax. Enter the total tax withheld on those dividends in KSh, from the dividend advice.
  4. Enter the total commission and levies from the buy contract note, and from the sell contract note if you have sold. For shares still held, leave sell costs at zero or enter what a sale would cost.
  5. Count the calendar days from the purchase date to the sale date, or to today for an open position, and enter that as the holding period.
  6. Read the total gain and total return first, then the split between price and dividends, and use the annualised figure for comparisons with other investments.

The formula.

R = ( E ⁄ I )^(365⁄d) − 1
R · annualised total returnE · ending value plus dividends after tax, KShI · amount invested including buy charges, KShd · holding period in days

Let n be the number of shares. The amount invested is I = n × buy price + buy costs. The ending value is S = n × sell price − sell costs. Dividends are D = n × dividends per share − tax withheld, so the dividend figure is the cash that reached you. From these, the price gain is S − I and the total gain is S + D − I. Each return percentage divides a gain by I: price return (S − I) ÷ I, dividend return D ÷ I, and total return (S + D − I) ÷ I, all × 100. Because the costs sit inside I and S, the price return here is already net of brokerage and levies. The dividend return is also not the dividend yield quoted in market data: a yield divides one year's dividend by today's price, while this divides every dividend you received by what you paid.

The annualised return is ((S + D) ÷ I)^(365 ÷ d) − 1, where d is the holding period in days. The bracket is the wealth multiple: how many shillings you ended with for each shilling put in. Raising it to 365 ÷ d finds the yearly growth rate that would produce the same multiple over d days, which is why two years becomes a square root rather than a division by two.

The model makes simplifying assumptions. All the money goes in on day one and comes out on day d; a later top-up or partial sale needs separate calculations. Dividends are counted as cash held, not reinvested in more shares, and their timing within the period is ignored. Returns are in nominal shillings, with no allowance for inflation. The tax withheld cannot exceed the dividends entered, and both prices must be above zero.

A worked example.

Example

The example investor bought 2,000 shares at KSh 18.50, paid no recorded charges and held them for 730 days while they rose to KSh 22.80, collecting dividends of KSh 1.20 a share. The money put in is 2,000 × 18.50 = KSh 37,000. The shares are now worth 2,000 × 22.80 = KSh 45,600, a price gain of 45,600 − 37,000 = KSh 8,600, or 8,600 ÷ 37,000 = 23.24%. Dividends add 2,000 × 1.20 = KSh 2,400, a dividend return of 6.49%. The total gain is 45,600 + 2,400 − 37,000 = KSh 11,000, and 11,000 ÷ 37,000 gives a total return of 29.73%. For the annual rate, the wealth multiple is 48,000 ÷ 37,000 = 1.2973; with d = 730 the exponent is 365 ÷ 730 = 0.5, and the square root of 1.2973 is 1.1390, so the position grew at 13.90% a year. The example enters no withholding. If the dividend advice had shown KSh 120 deducted, the dividends counted would fall to KSh 2,280, the total gain to KSh 10,880 and the total return to 29.41%, or 13.76% a year: a small change on this holding, but one that grows with the share of the return that comes from dividends.

shares2,000
dividends Per Share Ksh1.2
buy Price Ksh18.5
sell Costs Ksh0
sell Price Ksh22.8
buy Costs Ksh0
holding Days730

Frequently asked questions.

Why is my annualised return less than half of my two-year return?
Because the second year's growth is earned on the first year's gains. Growing 13.90% a year for two years multiplies money by 1.139 × 1.139 = 1.2973, the same 29.73% total, whereas 14.86% a year compounded would overshoot. Halving the total treats the two years as if no gain were reinvested, which overstates the yearly rate for any holding longer than a year.
Why does a quick gain show a huge annualised return?
Annualising assumes the same pace continues for a full year. A 5% gain over 30 days compounds to 1.05 raised to the power 365 ÷ 30, which is an annualised 81.05%. Nothing about one good month makes that likely to repeat, so for holdings of a few weeks the total return is the more meaningful figure and the annualised one mostly measures luck.
What transaction costs should I enter, and how much do they matter?
Enter the total charges on each contract note: brokerage commission plus the statutory levies listed with it. Suppose the example's purchase had cost KSh 780 in charges and the sale KSh 960. The invested amount rises to KSh 37,780, the sale proceeds fall to KSh 44,640, and the total return drops from 29.73% to 24.51%, or 11.58% a year.
Should I enter dividends before or after withholding tax?
Enter dividends per share as declared, before tax, and the total tax withheld in KSh in its own field. The company's registrar deducts withholding before paying you, and the dividend advice shows the gross amount, the tax and the net. Entering both lets the result show the dividend income you actually received alongside the gross figure.
Which dividends belong in the holding period?
Every dividend you were entitled to while you owned the shares. Entitlement depends on being on the share register at the book closure date the company announces, allowing for the few days a trade takes to settle, so a dividend whose book closure fell before you bought belongs to the seller, and one whose book closure fell before you sold is yours even if it is paid afterwards. Add interim and final dividends together.
How do I handle a bonus issue or a share split?
Make the share count and buy price match each other on the new basis. After a one-for-ten bonus issue, 2,000 shares become 2,200, and the KSh 37,000 you paid now covers 2,200 shares, so enter a buy price of 37,000 ÷ 2,200 = KSh 16.8182. Then enter the current price and dividends per share on the post-bonus basis too. Mixing old and new bases distorts every figure.
What about a rights issue, where I paid in more money?
A rights issue adds cash partway through, which a single-start calculation cannot time properly. The simplest approach is to enter the total shares held afterwards and an average buy price equal to everything you paid divided by those shares. The total return will be about right; the annualised figure will understate it slightly, because it treats the later money as invested from day one.
The price fell. Do dividends still help?
Yes, they cushion the loss. Had the example's shares fallen to KSh 15.00 instead of rising, the price loss would be KSh 7,000, or 18.92%. The KSh 2,400 in dividends cuts the total loss to KSh 4,600, a total return of minus 12.43% and minus 6.42% a year. The dividend return figure stays positive even when the total is negative.
Can I use it for shares I have not sold yet?
Yes. Enter the latest price as the sell price and count the days to today. The result is a paper gain that will change with the market, and it overstates what you would pocket unless you also enter the charges a sale would incur. Many investors run it periodically on open positions to see how much of the return so far has come from dividends.
Is a 13.90% annual return good?
It depends on what else the money could have earned over the same dates and at what risk. Compare the annualised figure with what a Treasury bill, fixed deposit or money market fund paid over the same period, and remember that a Treasury bill or fixed deposit fixes its return in advance while a share's return is uncertain until you sell. The figures are also before inflation, so a high rate in a year of high inflation buys less than it suggests.

References& sources.

  1. [1]Nairobi Securities Exchange (2026). "Market Statistics." NSE Data Services.
  2. [2]Nairobi Securities Exchange (n.d.). "Market Data Overview." NSE Data Services.
  3. [3]Nairobi Securities Exchange (n.d.). "Historical Data." NSE Data Services.
  4. [4]Capital Markets Authority (n.d.). "Capital Markets Information Toolkit." CMA Kenya.
  5. [5]Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (2016). "Key Concepts: Return and Rate of Return." FINRA Investor Education.
  6. [6]Kenya Law (2024). "Capital Markets Act, Cap. 485A." National Council for Law Reporting.

How this page was produced

Published by
Quanta Calculator
Overseen by
Daniel, Quanta Calculator Researcher
Primary sources
6 cited below
Method
R = ( E ⁄ I )^(365⁄d) − 1
Published
Last verified

Built with AI assistance and verified by automated tests against the cited sources — every worked example on this page is computed by the same code that runs the calculator. How we build and check calculators.

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