Kenyan Shilling Weakens Against US Dollar

Equities

Trading activity in the equities market slightly declined today as turnover decreased to KES 546Mn from KES 759Mn previously. Foreign investors turned net buyers while their local counterparts’ mainly sold with their actions accounting for 81% and 66% of the total turnover respectively. Safaricom, Equity bank, Kengen, Centum and Barclays were the top movers. The NSE 20 Share Index added 20.16 points to end the day at 3,895.86 points while the All Share Index increased marginally by 0.20 points to end the day at 146.45 points.

Fixed Income

Activity in the bonds market increased considerably as turnover jumped to KES 10 Bn from KES 1.6Bn yesterday. The number of deals transacted quadrupled to 24.

Currencies

The Kenya Shilling weakened slightly against the dollar yesterday as it dropped to an average of KES 100.93 from a mean of KES 100.79 yesterday after the central bank cut its benchmark lending rate by a percentage point to 10.50 percent on Monday, the first cut in nine months. The shilling has slipped after almost reaching 100 to the dollar earlier this month.

Article by Kingdom Securities Ltd.