Foreign investors' sales push Nairobi bourse equity turnover 166 pct up

Turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) went up 166 percent Monday to 7.61 million U.S. dollars as foreign investors, who dominated trade, sold more shares than they bought.

The investors offloaded mainly East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group shares and bought Safaricom, KenGen and Cooperative Bank.

A total of 20 million shares were traded, up from 13 million worth 2.9 million dollars in the previous trading session.

KenGen was the top mover, trading 6.4 million shares at 0.6 dollars. The company attracted foreign buys as it Monday sold 4.4 billion shares to raise 288 million dollars in a rights issue.

The electricity generator accounted for over 90 percent of the total shares traded under the petroleum and energy sector.

In the banking category, KCB Group topped and was the second biggest mover at the bourse as the financial institution traded 2.71 million dollars at 0.41 dollars.

Cooperative Bank, similarly, traded 2.4 million shares at 0.18 percent, getting more attention from foreign investors, who accounted for 84 percent of trading at the bourse, following its 34 million dollars profit in quarter one results last week. In total, the banking sector had 5.7 million shares traded.

The manufacturing and allied sector moved 2 million shares with EABL trading 1.5 million shares at 3 dollars each.

Safaricom, on the other hand, under the telecommunication sector, moved 2.2M shares at 0.17 dollars.

The NSE 20 Share Index went down 15.2 points to stand at 3,875.69 while the All Share Index (NASI) shed 0.49 points higher to settle at 146.25 and the NSE 25 Share Index was down 7.14 points to stand at 4,209.06. At the bond market, securities worth 16 million dollars were transacted. Endit