The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) 20 Share Index fell considerably Tuesday as large stocks plunged amid the ongoing political standoff in Kenya.

The benchmark NSE 20 Share Index went down 26 points to stand at 3,597.85, crossing below the 3,600 mark for the first time in about two months.

Similarly, the All Share Index (NASI) shed 1.08 points to stand at 157.44 while the NSE 25 Share Index was down 23.19 points to stand at 4,093.28.

At least 15 stocks in the large counter bracket led by telecom firm Safaricom went down in the Tuesday trading or remained flat.

Safaricom, Kenya's leading company, was the top traded stock after moving 17 million shares at unchanged price of 0.24 U.S. dollars.

Banking sector stocks dominated the rest of the trading to account for 38 percent of the day's traded value.

Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) moved 4.3 million shares, which changed hands at 0.36 dollars, while Equity Bank remained stable at 0.37 dollars and transacted 3.8 million shares.

Barclays Bank fell some cents to 0.09 dollars and moved 666,000 shares to end as the fourth traded stock.

Some 29 million shares valued at 8.2 million dollars were traded, up from Monday's 7.2 million shares that were valued at 2 million dollars.