Nairobi bourse benchmark index down as some key stocks gain

Equity trading at Nairobi Securities Exchange went up slightly Tuesday boosted by increase in share prices of selected large firms listed at the bourse.

However, decline in prices of other large stocks like East Africa Breweries Ltd, which dropped by 0.04 dollars to trade at 2.3 dollars, dragged the NSE 20 Share Index 13.34 points down to stand at 3,442.87.

Safaricom, Scangroup, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and KenolKobil are among large stocks whose share prices went up marginally, boosting trade.

Safaricom rose 2.4 percent Tuesday to move 2.8 million shares, up from 2.2 million, after touching a high of close to 0.22 dollars.

KCB was up 0.8 percent to move 1.2 million shares while Co-operative Bank was the day's biggest mover, with 4.4 million shares at unchanged price of 0.38 dollars.

The banking sector had 7 million shares traded in total to account for 49 percent of the day's traded volume.

Scangroup actively moved 2.9 million shares at 0.16 dollars to lift trading in the commercial and services sector, where 3.2 million share were traded.

The All Share Index was up 1.58 points to stand at 146.31 while the NSE 25 Share Index notched up 16.92 points to stand at 3916.93.

The bond market had securities worth 16 million dollars traded, up from 11 million dollars on Monday. Endit