NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling weakened on Tuesday after oil importers bought dollars, while the benchmark share index fell for the sixth consecutive session.
The shilling closed at 91.60/70 to the dollar, down from Monday's close of 91.40/50.
Chris Muiga, a trader at National Bank, said the local currency was seen trading between 91.20/30 to 91.65/75 to the dollar in the coming days.
Other traders said the shilling could buckle under the pressure of a stronger dollar, but recover thereafter.
"For now, it could remain under pressure in line with the global trends. But ultimately we expect it to recover," said a trader at another commercial bank.
On the stock market, the NSE-20 share index index lost 3.00 points or 0.06 percent to close at 5,368.69 points.
Traders said the slight decline was a sign that investors were nearly done booking gains, which has caused the market to stumble after the key index rose to a six-year high last month.
"It is a classic bull market pattern where corrections are shallow," said Aly Khan Satchu, an independent trader and analyst.
In the secondary debt market, bonds worth 3.4 billion shillings ($37 million) were traded, down from a volume of 3.7 billion shillings traded on Monday.
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