Nairobi bourse records one of slowest day in four months

Equity turnover at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on Monday recorded one of the slowest sessions since the beginning of the year, clocking 2.4 million U.S. dollars from a volume of 10 million shares.

The trading was a drop from 5.7 million dollars traded last Friday on a volume of 25.6 million shares. Nearly all the key stocks registered a decline in trading, with Safaricom recording one of the biggest drops.

The leading telecom moved a million shares at an average of 0.17 dollars from 13 million shares in the last trading session at an average of 0.18 dollars.

The banking sector had 2 million shares traded, accounting for 21 percent of the day's traded volume.

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group moved 674,000 shares to close the day at 0.42 dollars, while Equity Group Holdings moved 203,000 shares at 0.40 dollars. Both stocks had traded over a million shares last Friday.

The commercial and allied sector had 2.3 million shares traded that accounted for 24 percent of the day's traded volume, with troubled national carrier Kenya Airways actively moving 2.1 million shares at an average of 0.04 dollars.

The energy and petroleum sector moved 1.7 million shares, with KenolKobil accounting for 1.5 million shares under the category.

The manufacturing and allied sector moved 1.4 million shares, which accounted for 15 percent of the day's traded volume.

Despite the drop in trading, the NSE 20 Share Index was up 9.03 points to stand at a best of 4019.85, while the All Share Index (NASI) shed 1.30 points to settle at 146.25 and the NSE 25 Share Index too shaved off 22.72 points to settle at 4214.24.