Kenya's bourse ends week higher on local investors

NAIROBI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) ended the week higher Friday as both turnover and the benchmark index surged on increased local investors trading.

The investors' participation at the bourse stood at 61 percent from 31 percent on Thursday, with the locals mainly trading banking stocks namely Cooperative Bank, Equity Bank and Kenya Commercial Bank.

Increased trading saw the investors lift the bourse's turnover to 11 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 38 million shares from 35 million worth 9.5 million dollars.

Similarly, the NSE 20 Share Index was up 1.38 points to close at 3,707.76 points, a positive turn after maintaining a downward trend since Monday.

On the other hand, the NSE All Share Index (NASI) was down 0.73 points to close at 172.15 points.

Safaricom, East African Breweries Ltd, KCB, Cooperative Bank and Equity Bank accounted for 84 percent of the total turnover.

The most traded counters were Safaricom, Cooperative Bank, Kengen, KCB and Equity Bank moving about 11.9 million, 8.5 million, 4.5 million, 3.7 million and 3.3 million shares respectively.

At the bond market, turnover went up by 123 percent to stand at 23 million dollars from 10 million dollars in the Thursday trading. Enditem