Banks lift Nairobi bourse turnover 55 pct up

Banks shares lifted trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) as turnover rose 55 percent on Wednesday to 8.5 million U.S. dollars from 5.5 million dollars in previous trading session.

A total of 27 million shares were traded, up from 22 million posted Tuesday in a trading session dominated by foreign investors at 94 percent.

The banks moved 13.5 million shares in total, accounting for 50 percent of the day's traded volume. Under the category, Equity Group Holdings, which was the biggest mover at the bourse, saw 9 million shares changing hands at 0.40 dollars.

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group touched a day's high of 0.41 dollars on a volume of 3.4 million shares while Barclays Bank moved 440,000 shares and closed the day at 0.10 dollars.

Standard Chartered Bank, NIC Bank and Cooperative Bank are some of the banks whose share prices went up by between 2 and 3 percent.

Kenya's leading telecom Safaricom had 7 million shares traded at 0.17 dollars under the telecommunication sector.

The energy and petroleum sector moved 6.2 million shares, which accounted for 23 percent of the day's traded volume, with power generator KenGen actively moving 1.5 million shares at 0.07 dollars.

The manufacturing and allied sector moved 2 million shares that represented 7 percent of the day's traded volume while the investment sector had 1.3 million shares traded.

The increased trading saw the NSE 20 Share Index go up 16.5 points to stand at 3,912.33. Similarly, the All Share Index (NASI) ended 0.18 points lower to stand at 146.27 while the NSE 25 Share Index was up 0.75 points to settle at 4,212.46.

The bond market had securities worth 60 million dollars transacted, a drop from 100 million posted Tuesday. Endit