Kenya's mobile phone operator, Safaricom shares rose 6 percent to hit a best high of 0.22 U.S. dollars on Wednesday and lifted Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) trading.

The leading telecom operator moved 37 million shares up from 10 million shares in the previous session. Tuesday, the telecom's stock had declined to 0.20 dollars.

Shares of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) came second with 2.8 million shares after going up 3.3 percent to trade at a new high of 0.39 dollars.

Equity Bank came third with 1.3 million shares after going up 0.7 percent to trade at 0.37 dollars while Kengen moved 1.1 million shares at 0.07 dollars to clock the fourth position.

East African Breweries Ltd closed the list of top five traded stocks after transacting 973,500 shares at 2.4 dollars.

At least eight large stocks at the bourse recorded gains, helping to the benchmark index to reverse a negative turn registered Tuesday. They included Cooperative Bank, Barclays Bank, KenolKobil, Centum Investment and Athi River Mining.

The NSE 20 Share Index increased 3 points to end the day at 3,441.05 from 3,438.17 during Tuesday's session.

Over 40 million shares were traded at the bourse up from 21 million shares valued at 3.7 million dollars in previous session.