Equity trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) Thursday remained subdued, with 12.6 million shares valued at 2.9 million U.S. dollars being moved up as investors shifted to bonds.

The bond market, on the other hand, witnessed an upswing of activity, transacting securities worth 25 million dollars compared to 11 million dollars posted Wednesday and 5 million dollars Tuesday.

Kenya's leading telecom Safaricom was the top mover at the equities market, trading 3.7 million shares at an unchanged price of 0.20 dollars.

Equity Bank was the second best trader, transacting 2.4 million shares at 0.30 dollars. Overall, the banking sector had 4.8 million shares traded to account for 38 percent of the day's traded volume.

The commercial sector moved 1 million shares, which accounted for 8.3 percent of the day's traded volume, with Kenya Airways recording a 2.5 percent gain to close at 0.04 dollars on a volume of 999,000 shares.

The energy sector, on the other hand, had 686,000 shares traded, with power generator KenGen transacting 483,000 shares at 0.06 dollars.

The benchmark NSE 20 Share Index dropped 20.8 points to stand at 3,264.03 as nine top stocks tumbled. Similarly, the All Share Index (NASI) shed 0.21 points to settle at 137.53 while the NSE 25 Share Index was down 13.98 points to stand at 3,644.92.

Source : XINHUA