OREANDA-NEWS. The Kenyan shilling weakened on Tuesday after oil importers bought dollars, while the benchmark share index fell for the sixth consecutive session.

The shilling closed at 91.60/70 to the dollar, down from Monday's close of 91.40/50.

Chris Muiga, a trader at National Bank, said the local currency was seen trading between 91.20/30 to 91.65/75 to the dollar in the coming days.

Other traders said the shilling could buckle under the pressure of a stronger dollar, but recover thereafter.

"For now, it could remain under pressure in line with the global trends. But ultimately we expect it to recover," said a trader at another commercial bank.

On the stock market, the NSE-20 share index index lost 3.00 points or 0.06 percent to close at 5,368.69 points.

Traders said the slight decline was a sign that investors were nearly done booking gains, which has caused the market to stumble after the key index rose to a six-year high last month.

"It is a classic bull market pattern where corrections are shallow," said Aly Khan Satchu, an independent trader and analyst.

In the secondary debt market, bonds worth 3.4 billion shillings (\$37 million) were traded, down from a volume of 3.7 billion shillings traded on Monday.