Kenya Airways leads Nairobi bourse Wednesday in impressive gain

Kenya Airways shares recorded the highest gain (8.3 percent) Wednesday at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) as talks between pilots' union, management and government to chart a new path for the troubled airline continue.

The growth was a continuation from Tuesday, where the stock gained 6.5 percent, and in both sessions trading was dominated by local investors.

The blue-chip traded 1.9 million at 0.05 U.S. dollars to emerge as the top mover of the day at the bourse.

Safaricom, East African nation's leading telecom operator, was the second top mover with 1.8 million shares at 0.19 dollars, a drop of 0.3 percent.

NIC Bank and Cooperative Bank followed in the order respectively as they moved 1.7 million shares and 1.1 million shares, respectively. In total, the banking sector had 4.4 million shares traded and represented 36 percent of the day's traded volume.

The energy and petroleum sector moved 1 million shares, which accounted for 9.5 percent of the day's traded volume, with KenolKobil trading 932,000 shares of the total at a fairly stable price of 0.11 dollars.

In total, turnover stood at 2.6 million dollars on a volume of 12 million shares from the previous session's 7.7 million worth 1.2 million dollars.

The benchmark NSE 20 Share Index was down 10.67 points to stand at 3,239. On the other hand, the All Share Index (NASI) shed 0.5 points to settle at 136.13 while the NSE 25 Share Index shaved-off 18.75 points to settle at 3,598.39.

The bond market had securities worth 24 million dollars transacted compared to 25 million dollars in the previous session. Endit