Kenya's bourse turnover surges on high foreign sales

NAIROBI, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday rose 174 percent boosted by the foreign sale of leading telecom firm Safaricom.

Equity turnover stood at 20 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 68 million shares from 30 million shares worth 7.4 million dollars in the Monday session.

The foreigners accounted for 49 percent of the total turnover, but were mainly net sellers raising sales by 560 percent and buys by 231 percent.

Safaricom, Equity Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Cooperative Bank and KenolKobil accounted for 95 percent of the total turnover.

The most traded counters were Safaricom, Equity Bank, KenolKobil, Cooperative Bank and Stanlib Fahari, moving 42.1 million, 7.8 million, 6.0 million, 5.5 million and 4.1 million shares respectively.

The NSE 20 Share Index was up 4.19 points to close at 3,759.95 points while the NSE All Share Index (NASI) was down 0.53 points to close at 181.38 points.

Bond turnover went up by 257 percent to stand 54 million dollars from 15 million dollars in the previous session. Enditem