Kenya's blue-chip stocks fall, pushing down key index

NAIROBI, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's bourse indicative index declined 12 points on Monday, pushed down by fall of some major blue-chip stocks in a session dominated by local investors.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) 20 Share Index went down 11.70 points to end the day at 3,729.32, pulled down by decline of Safaricom (3.4 percent), Kenya Power (1.2 percent), Equity Bank (1.7 percent) and CFC Stanbic (1.2 percent).

Ten stocks that make the index declined, seven surged by between 0.3 percent and 8.5 percent while the rest were flat.

The most-traded counters were Equity Bank, Kengen, Kenya Commercial Bank, Safaricom and TP Serena, moving about 5.5 million, 4.3 million, 2.4 million, 1.5 million and 1.46 million shares respectively.

Turnover stood at 6.2 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 21 million shares, down from 14 million dollars from 37 million shares in the previous session last Friday, while the NSE All Share Index (NASI) closed down at 177.78 points.

On the bond market, trading was vibrant, standing at 32 million dollars, up from Friday's 29 million dollars. Enditem