Kenya's bourse index, turnover sustain rally

NAIROBI, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Both the benchmark index and turnover of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rose on Friday, sustaining an upward trend seen on Thursday.

The NSE 20 Share Index closed the week at 3,713.41 points, or 0.32 percent up, after gaining 11.84 points. On Thursday, the index rose by 25.09 points, the first time in weeks.

The index sustained the upward trend due to rises in the stock prices of Safaricom (4 percent), Equity Bank (1.3 percent), and Athi River Mining Cement (4.2 percent).

As on Thursday, at least 10 stocks that make the index rose between 0.4 percent and 5 percent.

The NSE All Share Index (NASI) closed the day at 174.17, up from 171.67 of the previous session.

Turnover rose slightly to 6.1 million U.S dollars on a volume of 19.2 million shares, from Thursday's 20 million shares at 6 million dollars.

The most traded counters were Safaricom, Kenya Power, Kenya Commercial Bank, KenyaRe and East African Breweries Ltd, moving around 11 million, 1.8 million, 1.3 million, 883,900 and 666,200 shares respectively.

Foreigners' participation stood at 65 percent, down from 74 percent. At the bond market, turnover fell to 21 million dollars, down from 23 million dollars of the previous day. Enditem