NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling ended steady against the dollar on Friday, helped by the central bank drawing more liquidity out of the banking sector, while shares recovered the previous session's losses.
At the 1300 GMT market close, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 83.90/84.10 per dollar, the same as Thursday's close.
"The shilling has managed to maintain a great degree of stability and should end-month (dollar) demand fail to materialise we expect the shilling to make some slight gains," Bank of Africa wrote to clients in a daily report.
Traders said they expected the central bank's persistent mopping up of liquidity via repurchase agreements (repos) to offer support to the local currency in coming days.
The bank absorbed 8.01 billion shillings ($95.4 million)after it received bids worth 9.84 billion shillings for the 8 billion shillings it had offered in repos on Friday.
The main NSE-20 Share Index recovered from a loss on Thursday, adding 0.2 percent to close the week at 3,826.89 points.
Nation Media Group, Kenya's leading media house, rose 2.5 percent, extending its rally to an all-time high of 204 shillings as investors bet it will perform better on the back of advertising earnings from upcoming general elections.
"Its regional expansion, entry into the diaspora money transfer service and expected political advertising revenue are seen boosting profitability," said Ronald Lugalia, an analyst at Afrika Investment Bank.
Kenya Airways, one of Africa's leading airlines, pared some of its losses from the previous session, rising 4.7 percent to 12.80 shillings.
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