* Shilling quickly reverses gains during session
(Adds shilling closing rate, stocks, bonds)
By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Commercial banks quoted the Kenyan shilling
Traders said they expected the shilling to trade in the 88.50 to 89.00 range in coming days and have a bias towards strengthening.
During the session it touched 88.30/40 to the dollar before reversing the gains.
Traders said the central bank mopped up 5.93 billion shillings earlier in the session, but this had little impact on the local currency. It had sought to mop up 8 billion shillings.
"I still think (dollar) supply is the issue," Julius Kiriinya, trader at African Banking Corporation, said.
Traders said the shilling's weakening had also been limited by slowing dollar demand.
Sheikh Mehran, head of trading at I&M Bank, said there was also an increase in central bank reserves. "So generally, the shilling might strengthen a bit," he added.
The central bank said in its latest weekly bulletin that official usable foreign exchange reserves rose to $6.377 billion in the week ending Sept. 4 from $6.257 billion a week before.
On the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the main NSE-20 Share Index
On the secondary market, government bonds worth a total 1.38 billion shillings were traded compared with 1.6 billion shillings on Friday.
(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Janet Lawrence) ((george.obulutsa@thomsonreuters.com; Tel: +254 20 499 1232; Reuters Messaging: george.obulutsa.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: KENYA MARKETS/




















