Nairobi, July 6 -- Dollar investors in blue chip stocks at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) earned a return of 18.8 percent in the first half of the year, nearly matching local currency returns as a stable shilling protected their portfolios from currency losses.

Data from the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) emerging and frontier market indices shows that the NSE dollar return accelerated in the second quarter of the year after share prices of Safaricom and large banks rose by double-digit margins of between 10 and 88 percent.

The MSCI tracks the performance of selected large and medium sized companies in 10 African frontier and emerging markets, as part of its global series of indices that are closely watched by foreig...