Kenya's bourse key index hits 1000 points lower

 The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) 20 Share Index lost 17 points Monday to stand at 3,767.20, 1,010 points or over 21 percent lower than it was in June last year.

The index, which tracks the performance of 20 best-performing firms listed on the securities exchange, has been on a downward spiral as prices of key stocks remain flat or drop.

Similarly, the All Share Index (NASI) shed 0.15 points to settle at 147.29 while the NSE 25 Share Index was down 10.05 points to stand at 4,103.44.

Save for Kenya's leading telecom Safaricom, prices of stocks of several firms that make up the key index have been on a losing streak, prompting investors to dispose them.

Some 28 million shares valued at 7.7 million U.S. dollars were traded, down from against 33 million worth 8.2 million dollars Friday last week.

Of the shares traded, Safaricom contributed 20 million shares at slightly above 0.18 dollars, which represented 70.3 percent of the day's traded volume.

The banking sector, whose firms make a sizeable number of those in the NSE 20 Share Index, had 5.8 million shares traded and represented 21 percent of the day's traded volume.

Equity Group Holdings was the most-heavily traded counter under the category, with 3.8 million shares changing hands at unmoved price of 0.40 dollars.

The commercial and allied sector, the energy and petroleum and insurance sector all did not trade more than a million shares. The bond turnover was up 85 percent to close at 5.4 million dollars.