NairobiThe kenya shilling was steady yesterday, with traders expecting it to weaken in coming days as importers buy dollars to make end-of-month external payments, while shares dipped.Commercial banks quoted the shilling at 87.15/35 per dollar, barely changed from Friday’s close of 87.20/40."We still expect mild demand for the greenback to continue as corporates wind up their end-month dollar demand,” said Bank of Africa in a daily note.The shilling has been under pressure this month amid importer demand for hard currency, while inflows from tea, Kenya’s top hard currency earner, have been hit by unrest in Egypt - the biggest buyer of Kenyan tea. The shilling has lost 0.4 per cent since the central bank sold dollars in the market a fortnight ago, a move that had helped the local currency recover from a five-month low.Traders said they expected the bank to intervene again if the shilling slid rapidly. The bank has previously said it would only intervene in the market to stem volatility.In stocks, the benchmark NSE-20 share index dipped for the first time in three sessions, shedding 0.2 per cent to 4,793.82 points.East African Breweries, the second most capitalised company on the Nairobi Bourse, fell 1.4 per cent to sh346 a share as investors bet its full-year earnings could come in lower than the previous year.

"Investors are not expecting the brewer to perform well this year because competition has been strong in the region,” said Ronald Lugalia, an analyst at Afrika Investment Bank.