NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling held steady against the dollar on Friday on the back of tight local currency liquidity in the money markets, which usually makes it costlier to hold dollars.
Stocks were higher for the third straight day.
At the 1300 GMT close, banks quoted the shilling at 91.70/80 to the dollar, the same level as Thursday's close.
"It's been a bit tight on the money-market side and, due to that, the dollar/shilling did not really move anywhere," said Sheikh Mehran, head of trading at I&M BANK.
He said that while dollars will be coming into the market next week as companies meet their end-of-month obligations, the overall trend remains "on the weakening side."
"We have US (dollar) strength all over the world. All of the currencies are really being hammered," he said.
The shilling, which is down 1.55 percent this year, has also been hit by a drop in hard currency flows from tourism after attacks blamed on Islamists from neighbouring Somalia scared off foreign visitors.
Market participants said the central bank could cause further tightening if it opts to mop up funds from the market to cushion the currency from demand pressure.
On the equity market, the benchmark NSE 20 index rose 0.86 points to 5,217.88 points.
In the secondary debt market, bonds worth 295 million shillings ($3.22 million) were traded, up from 207 million shillings on Thursday.
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