OREANDA-NEWS. March 26, 2015. Kenya's main share index broke a three-day losing streak to close higher on Wednesday, while the shilling was steady.

Oil marketer KenolKobil was among the gainers on the bourse after reporting that its 2014 pretax profit more than doubled to 1.52 billion shillings (\\$17 million).

The fuel retailer's share price ended the session 7.5 percent higher at 10.05 shillings, after surging 9 percent to near a three-week high of 10.20 shillings earlier.

"For Kenol, they announced the full year results and the saw the profits increasing ... that's why the counter moved," Agnes Achieng, research analyst at Sterling Investment Bank, said.

The Nairobi Security Exchange's main NSE-20 Share Index rose by 20.50 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 5,275.10 points.

On the foreign exchange market, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 91.75/85 to the dollar at the close of trading, compared with Tuesday's close of 91.70/80.

"Today has been a very quiet day," said a senior trader at one commercial bank.

Traders said end-month demand for dollars was matched by inflows of foreign exchange from investors attracted by a government bond auction.

The central bank said it received bids worth 51.66 billion shillings for the 12-year infrastructure bond, more than twice the 25 billion shillings it had offered.

"It looks like the flows that were expected for the upcoming infrastructure bond have been supporting the local currency," said Duncan Kinuthia, head of trading at Commercial Bank of Africa.

Kinuthia said he expected the shilling to stay in a recent range of 91.50 to 92.30 for the rest of the week.

On the secondary market, government bonds worth 735.2 million shillings were traded, up from 642 million shillings on Tuesday.