Nairobi bourse turnover slides as investors sell-off Safaricom

Turnover declined at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) Tuesday to 6.4 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 23 million shares from 45 million worth 10 million dollars Monday as investors offloaded Safaricom stock, which went down more than 1 percent.

The leading telecom operator is the top performing stock at the bourse, trading 38 million shares mainly foreign inflows, Monday.

But Tuesday many foreign investors sold the stock, which slid 1.2 percent to 0.20 dollars, more than they bought, signaling a change of the tide for the much-sought after stock that traded 9.5 million shares Tuesday.

In the banking sector, some 6.9 million shares were traded to represent 30 percent of the day's traded volume.

Equity Bank actively moved 3.7 million shares under the category after going up 2 percent to trade at 0.31 dollars while Kenya Commercial Bank dropped 2.7 percent to 0.27 dollars to move 1.4 million shares.

In the energy sector, some 3.7 million shares that accounted for 16 percent of the day's traded volume were transacted. Electricity generator KenGen was the most heavily traded counter with 3.6 million shares at 0.07 dollars.

The commercial sector had 1.3 million shares traded, with TPS Eastern Africa moving 954,000 shares at 0.18 dollars.

During the trading, the NSE 20 Share Index went down 17.02 points to stand at 3,241.92.

Similarly, the All Share Index edged 0.97 points lower to stand at 137.18 and the NSE 25 Share Index shed 18.13 points to settle at 3,630.58. Endit