Foreigners lift Kenya's bourse equity turnover

NAIROBI, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Equity turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rose 37 percent on Monday on foreigners' increased participation.

The investors, who were net sellers, however bought as much as they sold as they raised their participation to 82 percent from 80 percent in the previous session. Local participation, on the other hand, stood at 18 percent.

The foreigners mainly traded Safaricom, Equity Bank and Scangroup, raising sales by 43 percent and buys by 33 percent.

A total of 26 million shares worth 7.6 million shares were traded during the session, up 19 million valued at 5.5 million dollars.

Safaricom, Equity Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), East African Breweries Ltd and Scangroup accounted for 93 percent of the total turnover.

However, the most traded counters were Safaricom, Equity Bank, Scangroup, KCB and Mumias moving 15.8 million, 4.6 million, 1.1 million, 800,000 and 700,000 shares respectively.

The NSE 20 Share Index was down 11.83 points to close at 3,803.78 points, reversing a positive trend recorded at the end of last week. On the other hand, the NSE All share Index (NASI) was up by 0.53 points to close at 173.61 points.

At the bond market, turnover went up by 37 percent to stand at 20 million dollars from 14 million dollars last session. Enditem