NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling was a touch weaker on Thursday on dollar demand from importers, while stocks nudged lower.
The shilling closed at 91.60/70 to the dollar compared with 91.55/65 on Wednesday.
Duncan Kinuthia, head of trading at the Commercial Bank of Africa said the local currency's decline was offset by tight money market liquidity.
"The usual corporate names - oil, energy, telcos - were buying dollars," he said.
"As long as there is tightness, I don't expect it to lose much further but it will maintain the same bearish tone going forward."
Payments for Treasury bills and bonds last week caused a shortage of the local currency, supporting the shilling. Treasury bill auctions this week have seen lower bids compared to the previous week due to the liquidity crunch.
On the overnight market, the weighted average interbank lending rate rose to 8.3325 percent on Wednesday from 8.0814 percent a day before, pointing to the tighter liquidity.
Traders forecast the shilling - which has lost 1.2 percent against the dollar so far this year - to trade in the 91.65 to 92.00 range in the days ahead.
On the equity market, the benchmark NSE 20 index inched down 0.2 percent to close at 5,194.21 points.
In the secondary debt market, bonds worth 1.8 billion shillings ($19.66 million) were traded, down from 2.7 billion shillings on Wednesday.
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