Despite Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall siege – which had not ended at the time of writing on Tuesday – the Kenyan currency and equities markets remained steady on Monday when markets opened on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).

According to Business Daily, the shilling gained somewhat, strengthening to 87.40/60 in a vigilant trading session characterised by little trading volumes.

On the other hand, listed shares reflected a robust interest from external investors who were expecting a rapid end to the terrorist carnage at the shopping mall.

However, the NSE 20 index lost 12 index points to 4739 points on the back of small trading volumes on the day.

Business Daily reported that some tiny tremor was anticipated from the weekend carnage.

But the tremor turned out to be very small during Monday’s trading. Critical trading fundamentals were anticipated to continue to remain stable once the crisis ended sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, Kenyan government people on Tuesday said they were closer to bringing the deadly carnage to a close.

BBC Africa reported that three killers were shot dead and the army continued to search every floor of the building for other terrorists and people that could have been left behind during the evacuation process..  According to the Kenyan Red Cross, 63 people “remained unaccounted for.”

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