* Foreign investors head into equities
* Shilling seen firming on dollar inflows
(Adds markets close, stocks)
By Kevin Mwanza
NAIROBI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Kenyan shares inched up for a
second session on Friday, buoyed by foreign investors picking up
equities, while the shilling was steady against the dollar.
The benchmark NSE-20 Share Index inched up 0.2
percent to close at 3,831.01 point.
"Foreign investors are coming back into the major counters.
It's a buyers market," said Mwenda Rarama, an analyst at Kingdom
Securities.
Standard Chartered Bank of Kenya gained 2.6
percent to 198 shillings a share, while Nation Media Group
rose 1.1 percent to finish at 179 shillings. Both firms
posted growth in their half year earnings.
In the foreign exchange market, the shilling closed at
84.00/20 per dollar at the 1300 GMT close of trade, the same
level it closed at on Thursday.
"The shilling is poised for gains in coming days as customer
demand (for dollars) has subsided," said Duncan Kinuthia, head
of trading at Commercial Bank of Africa. "We also expect good
flows from exporters."
Traders said the shilling, which has gained 1.2 percent this
year due to the central bank's tight monetary policy stance,
could touch 83.50 per dollar next week.
During Friday's session, the central bank mopped up 2
billion shillings via repurchase agreements, after it received
bids worth 6.2 billion for the 2 billion shillings it had
offered.
In the bond market, government and corporate bonds worth 1.6
billion shillings ($19 million) were traded, down from 2.5
billion shillings on Thursday.
...........................Shilling spot rates
.....................Shilling forward rates
.......................Cross rates
..................................Local contributors
.......................Central Bank of Kenya Index
.....................Kenyan Bonds contributor pages
...............Treasury bill yields
..................Central bank open market operations
.........................Horizontal repo transactions
, ................Daily interbank lending rate
.............................Kenya Bond pricing
..................Real time Africa economic data
...........................African economic news
.................................NSE-20 Share Index
.................................NSE All Share Index
...........................FT NSE Kenya 15 Index
.......................... FT NSE Kenya 25 Index
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