NAIROBI: The Kenyan shilling gained slight ground on Thursday, helped by commercial banks shedding some dollar positions, and by US currency inflows into government securities.
Stocks edged slightly lower.
At 1330 GMT, commercial banks posted the shilling at 103.00/10 to the dollar, compared with 103.20/30 at Wednesday's close.
"We saw some banks offloading their dollars. Being the middle of the month, demand is a bit slow, that is why (the shilling gained)," a senior trader at one commercial bank said:
A second trader at another commercial bank said the shilling, down about 12 percent against the dollar this year, was getting support from inflows for Kenya's weekly Treasury bills auction and the Oct. 21 auction of an amortized one-year Treasury bond
In recent weeks traders have reported growing dollar inflows from foreign investors who have been attracted by interest rates on government Treasury bills of more than 20 percent, far above what Kenya usually pays for short-term debt.
On the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the main NSE-20 Share Index was down 7.66 points to close at 3,868.18, a new three-year low.
On the secondary market, government bonds valued at 3.17 billion shillings were traded, up from 2.23 billion shillings on Wednesday.
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