Safaricom, KCB foreign tradings push Nairobi bourse up

Equity turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) increased 165 percent to 4.5 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 19 million shares on the back of increased foreign trading of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and Safaricom.

The market had declined to 11 million shares worth 1.8 million dollars on Thursday as foreign investors slowed down participation.

Foreign investor participation on Friday edged up to 75 percent from 57 percent, accounting for 80 percent of total buying and 70 percent of total selling.

Safaricom was the top traded stock moving 5.4 million shares at 0.18 dollars, a high of 0.3 percent while KCB went up 1.5 percent to trade at 0.34 dollars, with the two dominating the session, and jointly accounting for 58 percent of total turnover.

Cooperative Bank, Barclays Bank and Equity Bank were the third, fourth and fifth most traded shares respectively after moving 2.8 million, 1.6 million and 755,500 shares.

Athi River Mining recorded the highest net foreign outflows but remained unchanged at 0.19 dollars while Bamburi Cement recorded the highest net foreign inflows, gaining 2.5 percent to 1.6 dollars.

British American Tobacco, on the other hand, gained 6.1 percent to close at 8.5 dollars, emerging among top gainers after recording net foreign buying.

The NSE 20 share Index shed 0.3 percent to stand at 3,112.52 while NASI went up 0.1 percent to end the week at 130.51. Endit