Kenya's bourse turnover dips on low Safaricom trading

NAIROBI, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) declined 72 percent on Monday, pushed down by low trading of Safaricom by foreign investors.

Equity turnover stood at 2.8 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 9.6 million shares from 27 million worth 10 million dollars in the previous session last Friday.

Safaricom, Kenya's leading telecom, during the Monday session, traded a paltry 4 million shares after going down 0.8 percent to 0.29 dollars. Last Friday, Safaricom traded 26 million shares.

Other most traded counters were Mumias Sugar Company, Stanbic, NIC Bank and CIC Insurance after moving 1.2 million, 900,000, 700,000 and 400,000 shares respectively.

The NSE 20 Share Index was up 11.54 points to close at 3,739.69 points while the NSE All Share Index (NASI) was down 0.53 points to close at 181.16 points.

Foreign investors dominated the trading at 52 percent participation, with most of it being on the buy side. Safaricom is the favorite foreign investors' stock.

At the bond market, turnover surged to stand at a record 26 billion dollars from 5 million dollars in the previous session. Enditem