Kenya's bourse turnover swells as shares rally

NAIROBI, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Equity turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) nearly tripled on Tuesday boosted by the sale of Kenya's leading telecom Safaricom.

Turnover during the session rose to 10 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 38.4 million shares, the largest trading in 2018 so far. On Monday, a total of 12.2 million shares worth 3.6 million dollars were traded.

Similarly, the NSE 20 Share Index recovered to close the day 20.84 points higher at 3,728.51 from 3,707.66 points on Monday.

On the other hand, the NSE All Share Index (NASI) increased from 173.93 to close the day higher at 174.14 points. The NSE 25 Share Index also went up during the session to stand at 4,350.33.

Some of the stocks whose prices surged to lift the two indices up were Sasini, Scangroup, Kengen and Unga, rising by between 4 percent and 9.5 percent.

The rise in prices pushed up market capitalization, which measures shareholders wealth, to 25 billion dollars, up from about 24 billion dollars.

The most traded counters were Safaricom, Kengen, Equity Bank, Carbacid and Kenya Commercial Bank moving 21 million, 11 million, 1.5 million, 1 million and 762,600 shares respectively. Enditem