Kenyas shilling eases, stocks close higher

Kenya‘s shilling eased on Wednesday due to increased dollar demand from companies across all sectors to meet their obligations before they close for the holidays, while stocks rose.

At the close of trade at 1330 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 102.35/45, compared with Tuesday’s close of 102.20/30.

“We saw some demand early in the day. We just had a number of corporates closing in their end-year obligations before they close for the end-year festivities,” said a trader at one commercial bank.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to make the first of potentially a series of interest rate hikes on Wednesday, after years of easy money policies.

Many firms have been treading cautiously ahead of the U.S. rate decision. If the Federal Reserve does raise rates, it would put pressure on emerging market currencies as investors sell riskier assets.

“Markets are just positioning themselves at least until the event is over,” the trader said.

On the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the main NSE-20 Share Index was up 24.09 points to close at 4,011.66 points.

On the secondary market, government bonds valued at 553.7 million shillings were traded, down from 1.01 billion shillings on Tuesday.