NAIROBI: Kenya's shilling closed slightly firmer, with inflows of foreign exchange from tea sales and other sectors countering end-month importer demand for dollars.
The main benchmark index closed slightly higher.
The shilling ended the day at 91.30/40 to the dollar, marginally stronger from Wednesday's close of 91.40/50.
"The shilling has been very stable in a lacklustre trading session," said Sheikh Mehran, head of trading at I&M Bank.
Kenya's central bank kept its key lending rate unchanged as expected at 8.50 percent on Thursday, offering no new momentum to a market where demand and supply was matched.
Mehran said he saw a weakening bias heading into next week, as foreign-owned companies buy dollars to pay dividends.
On the stock market, the blue-chip index added 0.14 percent or 8.07 points to close at 5,475.84.
Kenya Power, the country's sole electricity distributor was among the stocks that rose.
The company is expanding its network at a time when the country is also increasing its power generation capacity, which has attracted investors to the stock.
Safaricom, the country's biggest telecoms firm and the biggest stock on the bourse by market capitalisation fell 0.9 percent to 15.75 shillings, largely on profit-taking after a strong showing in the past week.
On the debt market, government bonds valued at 7.80 billion shillings ($85.34 million) were traded, up from 3.47 billion shillings on Wednesday.
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