Wednesday, 11 March 2015 20:24
NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling eased on Wednesday as the dollar strengthened on world markets, while shares fell for the seventh consecutive session.
At the 1300 GMT market close, the shilling ended at 91.65/75 to the dollar, compared with Tuesday’s close of 91.60/70.
The weakening was largely driven by the global strength of the dollar rather than local factors, said Chris Muiga, a senior trader at National Bank of Kenya.
Another senior trader said the shilling had weakened to an intra-day low of 91.70/80 during the session.
Commercial Bank of Africa dealer Joshua Anene said the shilling had received some support from dollar inflows for a 25 billion shillings ($ 272.93 million) infrastructure bond that is due to be auctioned on March 25.
“That is holding us from breaking 92,” he said.
On the shares market, the benchmark NSE 20 index fell 0.12 percent or 6.26 points to close at 5,362.43 points.
The value of shares exchanged slipped to 582 million shillings from 1.34 billion shillings in the previous session.
On the secondary market, government bonds worth 2.49 billion shillings were traded, down from 3.48 billion shillings during the previous session.
Copyright Reuters, 2015
