The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) opened the week on a high as turnover hit 11 million U.S. dollars on a volume of 35 million shares, mainly boosted by sale of Safaricom shares.

The figures doubled those of the previous session on Thursday, 4.4 million dollars on a volume of 17 million shares. The bourse closed on Friday, a national holiday.

Safaricom, Kenya's leading telecom operator, was the most traded stock by foreign investors, who mainly offloaded the share ahead of the east African nation's repeat polls on Oct. 26.

The telecom operator traded 22 million shares at an increased price of 0.24 dollars, 1 percent higher. Only 3.2 million Safaricom shares were traded last Thursday.

Safaricom was followed by Kenya Commercial Bank and Equity Bank, which traded 3.9 million and 2.7 million shares respectively.

Kenya Airways and East African Breweries Ltd closed the list of the top traded stocks after moving 1.1 million and 681,800 shares respectively.

The NSE 20 Share Index went down marginally to close at 3,541.56, from 3,543.99 in the previous session.

The All Share Index (NASI), however, gained 1.14 points to stand at 156.07 while the NSE 25 Share Index was up 15.25 points to stand at 4063.25.

Market capitalization, which measures share holders' wealth, settled at 22.4 billion dollars, a gain of 16 million dollars, or 0.73 percent.