Nairobi bourse 20 Share Index drops 145 points a week

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) 20 Share Index closed the day at 3,909.47 on Wednesday, having lost a cumulative 145 points in about a week.

The index has been on a downward spiral since Thursday last week, where it had peaked at 4,054, with analysts blaming the fall on slowdown in trading and drop in prices of some key shares.

On Wednesday, the NSE 20 Share Index went down 15.86 points as the All Share Index recovered, going up 0.06 points to stand at 144.78. Similarly, the NSE 25 Share Index was up 0.29 points to settle at 4153.10.

Equity turnover stood at 4.8 million U.S. dollars from 16 million shares, a marginal rise from the previous session of 4.2 million dollars from 13 million shares.

As the previous day, the banking sector had 9.3 million shares traded, representing 57 percent of the day's traded volume, up from 9 million shares.

In the sector, KCB Group Holdings, which was the day's biggest mover, saw 5.4M shares changing hands at between 0.42 dollars and 0.43 dollars.

Equity Group Holdings declined to 0.39 dollars, down from 0.40 dollars on a volume of 3 million shares while Co-op Bank moved 400,000 shares at an unchanged price of 0.20 dollars.

Safaricom, usually the top mover, saw 4 million shares changing hands, up from 1.5 million, at an unchanged price of 0.17 dollars.

The commercial and services sector had 1.1 million shares traded while the insurance sector had 737,000 and manufacturing and allied 428,000.

The bond market saw securities worth 35 million transacted, up from 33 million the previous day as the market segment sustained upward trend. Endit