Nairobi bourse closes week on a high as share rally lifts turnover

Volume of shares traded at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rose 36 percent Friday as a price rally of different stocks lifted equity turnover to 11.5 million U.S. dollars.

The biggest gainers at the market included Cooperative Bank, whose price rose by 9.5 percent to close the day at 0.23 dollars, while Eaagads Ltd's increased by 9 percent to close the week at 0.24 dollars.

Shares in the telecommunication and banking sector attracted the most interest from investors to account for over 81 percent of trading Friday.

KCB Group, Equity Bank, Safaricom and Co-op Bank moved shares worth 2.4 million dollars, 2.2 mil­lion dollars, 2.1 million dollars and 1.3 million dollars respectively.

The share rally saw market capitalization close on a high of 20.3 billion dollars, up from about 19 billion dollars at the end of last week.

The NSE 20 Share Index was up 0.47 percent to close at 3,946.19, while the Nairobi All share Index (NASI) was down 0.03 percent to close at 145.68.

However, in terms of weekly performance, the NSE 20 Share Index was down 12.63 points while the NASI was up 0.71 points.

On the other hand, the NSE 25 Share Index gained 19.57 points during the week to settle at 4228.22 points.

Similarly, this week's share rally lifted the weekly equity turnover to 40 million dollars from 33 million dollars last week, and the number of shares traded stood at 151 million against 115 million posted the previous week.

The banking sector accounted for 49 million shares traded in the entire week while Safaricom, in the telecommunication sector, had 71 million shares changing hands.

Foreign investors' participation during the week averaged 70 percent, with most of them buying as much as they sold. Enditem