Declined foreign trading pushes down Nairobi bourse

Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) turnover declined to 4 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 10 million shares Monday from 22 million shares worth 5.3 million dollars in the previous session, pulled down by a drop in foreign trading.

The foreign investors cut sales by 20 percent, and buys by 16 percent, though their participation at the bourse stood at 88 percent.

Safaricom, Kenya's leading telecom service provider was the top mover, trading 4 million shares at 0.20 dollars.

Equity Bank was the second day's best mover, trading 2 million shares at 0.30 dollars while Stanbic Bank moved 462,000 shares at 0.69 dollars.

In total, the banking sector had 3 million shares traded representing 30 percent of the day's traded volume.

In the manufacturing sector, some 1 million shares were moved with East African Breweries accounting for 822,000 shares at 2.5 dollars each.

The energy sector moved 726,000 shares, with Kenya Power trading 311,000 of the total at 0.08 dollars while KenolKobil went down some cents to trade 219,000 shares at 0.14 dollars.

The NSE 20 Share Index was down 18.02 points Monday to stand at 3,230 points. On the other hand, the All Share Index (NASI) ended 0.35 points higher to stand at 136.08 while the NSE 25 Share Index dropped 15.01 points to settle at 3580.32. Endit