Kenyan shilling ignores collapse of president's case, stocks up

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's shilling held steady on Friday, shrugging off news that the International Criminal Court's prosecutor had dropped charges of crimes against humanity against President Uhuru Kenyatta. At the 1300 GMT close, commercial banks posted the shilling at 90.25/35, unchanged from Thursday's close. The economic impact of the withdrawal of charges against Kenyatta was been limited, in part because most investors have long thought the case against Kenyatta was falling apart. "It's good news for the market but I feel it was already factored in. For long we have seen the case collapsing," John Njenga, trader at Commercial Bank of Africa, said. The Hague-based court had on Wednesday given the prosecution a week to decide whether to proceed with their case against Kenyatta, who was accused of fomenting ethnic violence after the 2007 election, or to withdraw the charges. On the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the main NSE-20 Share Index stocks rose by a fraction, up 0.3 percent or 15.04 points to close at 5,184.92 points. On the secondary market, government bonds valued at 1.2 billion shillings ($13.30 million) were traded, up from 3.05 billion shillings traded on Thursday. (1 US dollar = 90.2500 Kenyan shilling)