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The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site
http://www.rich.co.ke

Looking forward to hosting @EliudKipchoge at #Mindspeak

Eliud Kipchoge runs a 2:00.24 at Monza, the fastest recorded marathon
#F1 #Breaking2

“The world is actually full of challenges and we need to challenge
ourselves. I took a challenge to run that fast. It consumes a lot of
energy especially mentally. But I took myself and accepted to be
challenged and I challenged the time.”
“I had a friend in India who told me that – the guys is 50 years now –
and he told me he will die before we see a human being run two hours
flat. I met him one month ago in New York and I joked ‘You will never
die again because you have seen me run two hours.’”
“Self-discipline starts with you. It’s no other person. It starts with
you. Start to examine yourself…Self discipline is doing what’s right
instead of doing what you feel like doing. That’s the meaning of
self-discipline.”
“After accommodating self discipline in your mind, self-discipline can
help you to actually get three things. It can save your feelings. Get
you back on the course when you try to think otherwise, self
discipline can help easily come back and think positively. It helps
you do the right thing in the moment for long-term benefits.”
“You should stick to your priorities.”
“Don’t make excuses. When you have decided to do something, do it. No
excuses. Then you are self-disciplined.”
“Make discipline your lifestyle. Discipline is not a one-time event.
Self-discipline is like building your muscle. It’s like going to the
gym. You can not go to the gym today and build your muscle. You should
get a program and go slowly by slowly. That’s the way to build your
muscle and that’s the way you can have discipline.”
“Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you aren’t
disciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your
passions. That’s a fact.”
“There is a sign in one of the nicer schools in Canada. It [says] the
best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. That was the best time to
plant a tree. The second-best time is today. Plant the tree of
self-discipline.”
“I believe in a philosophy that says to win is actually not important.
To be successful is not even important. How to plan and prepare is
critical and crucial. When you plan very well, then success can come
on your way. Then winning can come on your way.
“In any profession, you should think positively. That’s the driver of
your mind. If your mind is really thinking positive then you are on
the right track. ‘Pleasure in what you’re doing puts perfection in
your work.’ That was a quote by Aristotle.”
“I am here because of teamwork. I am here because sport is a mutual
interest. I am here to talk about my success because I am really about
teamwork. Teamwork actually helps a lot.  Remember in sport, what you
have is Hero’s Formula. If you are a hero, then you have a formula and
that says 100% of myself is nothing compared to one percent of the
whole team. And vice versa. 1% percent of the teams is nothing
compared to 100% of myself. And that’s the meaning of teamwork.”
“The law of consistency says you should get motivated. Motivation
makes you move. Motivation makes you to go forward.”
“When you bring motivation and discipline (together), then you can be
consistent. When you combine it all together, they say if you want to
grow, consistency is the key. I’m confident in saying that consistency
is key if you want to grow in a new profession. Be it sport. Be it
law. Be it all sorts of professions. If you are not consistent, you
can not go anywhere. Consistency makes you to grow.”
“Accept change…I know it is not really comfortable to adopt change but
change in life of a human being or life of any profession is really
important. But change can not be forced.”
“Personally, I believe in what I am doing. To run a big marathon and
win, it takes five months. When I am on the starting line, my mind
starts to think of what I have been doing for the last five months. I
believe in my training. I treat myself as the best one on that line
because my mind is telling me that I am the best and I believe in what
I am doing in the last five months. I can run free. I can run free and
that’s what actually has helped me to be successful.”

Macro Thoughts

President Trump whose political raison d'être is to expunge and delete
the Name of Barrack Hussein Obama from the record, delivered a
unilateral hard exit from the nuclear agreement with Iran lifting
Crude Oil prices.

In fact, President Trump has flipped Obama's Oil warfare strategy [You
will recall Oil prices touched $32.00 a barrel in President Obama's
term in part to bring a recalcitrant Russia to heel and neuter Saudi
resistance to his JCPOA deal] on its head.

Wikipedia has an article on: halcyon days and it reads thus,

From Latin Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. When her
husband died in a shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea
whereupon the gods transformed them both into halcyon birds
(kingfishers). When Alcyone made her nest on the beach, waves
threatened to destroy it. Aeolus restrained his winds and kept them
calm during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These
became known as the “halcyon days,” when storms do not occur. Today,
the term is used to denote a past period that is being remembered for
being happy and/or successfuL

If volatility spikes, positions are going to be reduced en masse. Or
to put it another way and to borrow the lyrics from the Eagles Hotel
California:

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device” Last
thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! “
What is clear is that we are at the fag-end of this party.

Home Thoughts

“They are the reflection of the borders in our heads. They are the
borders that keep us from pursuing our dreams … You, me, us – we are
the border guards of our lives.”

The specialist is monitoring data on his mission console when a voice
breaks in, “a voice that carried with it a strange and unspecifiable
poignancy”.
He checks in with his flight-dynamics and conceptual- paradigm
officers at Colorado Command:
“We have a deviate, Tomahawk.”
“We copy. There’s a voice.”
“We have gross oscillation here.”
“There’s some interference. I have gone redundant but I’m not sure
it’s helping.”
“We are clearing an outframe to locate source.”
“Thank you, Colorado.”
“It is probably just selective noise. You are negative red on the
step-function quad.”
“It was a voice,” I told them.
“We have just received an affirm on selective noise... We will
correct, Tomahawk. In the meantime, advise you to stay redundant.”
The voice, in contrast to Colorado’s metallic pidgin, is a melange of
repartee, laughter, and song, with a “quality of purest, sweetest
sadness”.

This statement is carefully targeted at Bolton, but not Trump. Norks
are calculating there is space between them, and testing who is in
driver seat. Their hope appears to be that Trump will conclude Bolton
is threatening his prized Summit and throw him under the bus.

Yep. That’s the way I read it: “Sure, come to Singapore,
@realDonaldTrump - and bring me the head of John Bolton.” Then, like
the Walrus told the oysters in the Lewis Carroll poem, “we’ll talk of
many things ...”

North Korea threw into question next month’s unprecedented summit
between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, denouncing on
Wednesday U.S.-South Korean military exercises as a provocation and
calling off high-level talks with Seoul.

A report on North Korea’s official KCNA angrily attacked the “Max
Thunder” air combat drills, which it said involved U.S. stealth
fighters and B-52 bombers, and appeared to mark a break in months of
warming ties between North and South Korea and between Pyongyang and
Washington.

The “Max Thunder” drills, aimed at “boosting the capability of
pilots”, would go on as planned and were not aimed at attacking a
third party, the South’s defence ministry said.

Any cancellation of the June 12 summit in Singapore, the first meeting
between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader, would deal
a major blow to Trump’s efforts to score the biggest diplomatic
achievement of his presidency.

The Question remains as follows. Kim Jong-Un can hardly forget what
happened to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, both of whom met their
Ends after being de-fanged. So my Question remains, what security
guarantees can Trump provide to Kim? that convince him to
denuclearise. Offering up bullet-proof security guarantees is the
equivalent of threading the needle.

The Events that took place on Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom
and during the Inter-Korean Summit were breathtaking for the Hollywood
Optics. The Opening Shot of Kim Jong Un surrounded by a Phalanx of
North Korean Officials [later replayed as Chairman Kim sat in his
Presidential Vehicle surrounded by his Ninja bodyguards] was almost as
good as the opening Sequence in PT Anderson's Boogie Nights [Steadicam
operator Andy Shuttleworth]. This was Cinema of the highest level
which is no surprise when You consider that Kim Jong-Il the Father was
obsessed with Cinema and amassed arguably the world’s largest personal
film collection: over 20,000 bootlegged 35mm screening copies. Kim
Jong-Il also had a penchant for Hennessy Paradis cognac and for two
years in the mid-1990s, he was the world's largest buyer of Hennessy
Paradis cognac, importing up to $800,000 of the stuff a year.  Kim
Jong-Il began his career as the head of the state’s propaganda and
agitation department and its clear that Kim Jong-Un's sister Kim Yo
Jong who holds the same role and evidently handles all the optics, is
a chip off the old Block. Friday was tip-top Geopolitical Optics. Mike
Pompeo, the newly minted US Secretary of State [His predecessor was
fired via Twitter] had visited Pyongyang the previous week and
pronounced; that the young North Korean leader was "a smart guy who's
doing his homework"

Marwan Bishara was a little jaded by the Optics tweeted

''When pictures are the news and symbols are the facts, cliches become
truths and media turns into propaganda or BS''

''For now, We are short on facts long on images and hence any
perspective is likely to be speculative. Globally, we are being played
in a ‘game of nations’ which could produce more of the same or
different ...''

“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock,
which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft,
and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another
paradox: What is soft is strong,” Lao Tzu

South Korea is set to be peeled off and going by his puppy dog smiles
President Moonriver will be in PyongYang before you can pronounce Kim
Yo Jong correctly. Russia always had their back. China was never
interested in bringing him to heel. After all, he is the buffer state
between China and more than 30,000 US soldiers parked on their
doorstep in South Korea.

Gravity’s Rainbow is a 1973 novel by Thomas Pynchon which is about the
design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military.
In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters
to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the “Schwarzgerät”
(black device), slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial
number “00000”. As the world watches PyongYang, I cannot help
wondering if Kim Jong-Un has read Pynchon which speaks of “A screaming
comes across the sky” and North Korea.

“But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the
parabola.  They must have guessed, once or twice -guessed and refused
to believe -that everything, always, collectively, had been moving
toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no
surprise, no second chance, no return.’’

They all have had tiny little hands like the Elves in the Elves and
the Shoemaker. And this country has nuclear weapons and on its border
with its neighbour South Korea sit 25,000 American soldiers.

WhatsApp has largely escaped that notice because it is used more
heavily outside the United States, with people in countries like
India, Brazil and Indonesia sending a total of 60 billion messages a
day. And unlike Facebook and Instagram, where much of the activity is
publicly visible online, WhatsApp’s messages are generally hidden
because it began as a person-to-person communication tool.

Yet WhatsApp has several features that make it a potential tinderbox
for misinformation and misuse. Users can remain anonymous, identified
only by a phone number. Groups, which are capped at 256 members, are
easy to set up by adding the phone numbers of contacts. People tend to
belong to multiple groups, so they often get exposed to the same
messages repeatedly. When messages are forwarded, there is no hint of
where they originated. And everything is encrypted, making it
impossible for law enforcement officials or even WhatsApp to view
what’s being said without looking at the phone’s screen.

Govindraj Ethiraj, the founder of Boom and IndiaSpend, two sites that
fact-check Indian political and governmental claims, called WhatsApp
“insidious” for its role in spreading false information.

“They are the reflection of the borders in our heads. They are the
borders that keep us from pursuing our dreams … You, me, us – we are
the border guards of our lives.”

In Washington, where only four per cent of residents voted for Trump,
the President hews to a narrow patch of trusted terrain: he rarely
ventures beyond his home, his hotel, his golf course, and his plane,
taking Air Force One to Mar-a-Lago and to occasional appearances
before devoted supporters. He has yet to attend a performance at the
Kennedy Center or dine in a restaurant that is not on his own
property. As a candidate, Trump rarely went a week without calling a
news conference. But in office, as he contends with increasingly
intense investigations, he has taken to answering only scattered
questions, usually alongside visiting heads of state. He has now gone
more than four hundred days without a solo press conference. (Obama
held eleven in his first year.)

Euro 1.1837
Dollar Index 93.26
Japan Yen 110.27
Swiss Franc 1.0003
Pound 1.3512
Aussie 0.7476
India Rupee 67.815
South Korea Won 1077.26
Brazil Real 3.6534
Egypt Pound 17.8325
South Africa Rand 12.5786

U.S. crude #oil futures settle at $71.31/bbl. ⬆️$0.35. +0.49%. #CME
#NYMEX @Lee_Saks
https://twitter.com/Lee_Saks/status/996458276907823105

The Signal in the noise is the yield on 10 Year US Treasuries, which
Yield is around 3%. If we move to 3.5%, we could see a further round
of blood letting.

Countries that have been flying by the seat of their pants are now
being caught with their pants down.  is has all the ingredients for
baking a good old fashioned crisis.

Frontier Markets

Chinese investment in Africa could be accelerating debt on the
continent and creating economies which are “entirely dependent on
China”, according to financial experts.

Around $86bn (£64bn) in loans were issued by China between 2000 and
2014 to finance over 3,000 infrastructure projects in Africa.

But as leaders gather in Beijing for China’s Belt and Road Summit this
week, under the banner of President Xi Jinping’s flagship policy,
experts have warned that this level of investment may not be as rosy
at it appears.

Zuneid Yousuf, from MBI Group, said: “The 10,000 state owned firms
operating in China today arrive off the back of these mammoth
investments, and there’s no doubting their significant positive impact
in many areas.

“Infrastructure projects create jobs, provide an opportunity for
skills development and the transfer of new technologies.

“However, these firms come under the guise of partnership, but this
rhetoric, combined with genuine short term benefits masks longer term
problems.”

One of the main issues around the Chinese approach is the dangerously
high levels of debt that it brings, which could prove unsustainable
for growing economies.

There is also a risk that the continent becomes overly dependent on
one country, which could allow it to hold an uncomfortably high level
of influence.

Mr Yousuf said: “China is seeking to present itself as the new face of
globalisation, an image it will work hard to portray at this week’s
Belt and Road summit.

“The problem with this is that the current model of their
‘globalisation’ doesn’t so much encourage increased interaction
between nations on a worldwide scale, as increased interaction with
China on a worldwide scale.

“The reality in Africa is a model of globalisation that works only in
China’s interests.

“A far more effective model, one which would not lose the short-term
benefits outlined above whilst simultaneously avoiding the pitfalls of
unsustainable debt, would be to focus investment on partnerships with
local businesses.

“This way there would be no need for vast government loans, and the
job creation, skills development, and technology transfer would be
ingrained at a local level and grow organically.”

Zambia is an interesting case study of Africa-China relations.

China is the largest foreign investor in the country, but it is often
cited as an example of the limitations of Chinese investment.

The top-down, large government loan model has led to tensions.

One recent example is the problem of labour laws, and the news that
Chinese investors in Zambia have been preventing labour
representatives from being present at construction sites.

Yet Zambia is also a country with a wealth of successful local
businesses and a thriving private sector.

Chinese investment in Africa, particularly its effort to bridge the
infrastructure gap, as part of President Xi’s Belt and Road programme,
has the potential to transform the continent.

The modern scramble for Africa is intensifying.

A sharp uptick in the expansion of foreign militaries in the Horn of
Africa accompanied the growth of economic competition in the region in
2017. China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have opened military
bases throughout the area in the past two years. The region is
strategically important to these states for various reasons: securing
shipping routes in the Bab al Mandab Strait, proximity to the ongoing
conflict in Yemen, and the desire to array forces in the region
alongside rivals including the United States.

The modern scramble for Africa is intensifying.

A sharp uptick in the expansion of foreign militaries in the Horn of
Africa accompanied the growth of economic competition in the region in
2017. China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have opened military
bases throughout the area in the past two years. The region is
strategically important to these states for various reasons: securing
shipping routes in the Bab al Mandab Strait, proximity to the ongoing
conflict in Yemen, and the desire to array forces in the region
alongside rivals including the United States.

Africa has fully loaded the balance sheet. Notwithstanding a record
breaking Eurobond raise in 2018, Its as plain as day that the current
scenario is a little like Argentina's Century Bond moment, a last
Hurrah! African Governments need to improve their ROI because Envelope
space could evaporate momentarily and in a blink of any eye.

South Africa All Share Bloomberg -2.71% 2018
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/JALSH:IND

It has been a volatile May for the rand @business 12.5786
https://twitter.com/markets/status/996636798611836928

Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 17.8325
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDEGP&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Nigeria’s problem - the lowest tax collection in Africa @Rencapman
https://twitter.com/RencapMan/status/996375119718223872

(Unfortunately the IMF uses country codes, jargon like country codes
is the enemy of transparency)

Nigeria All Share Bloomberg +6.24% 2018
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NGSEINDX:IND

Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg +32.08% 2018
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GGSECI:IND

How is it that KES-USD is so stable yet the Emerging market currencies
are taking a hit ? Do we have above normal returns on equity and
treasuries compared with rest of emerging and frontier markets?
Nigeria Turkey, SA Rand..all on a losing streak @alykhansatchu
@hervegogo

The strength of the Shilling has confounded everyone for eternity but
it’s actually empirical and based on a surge in official remittances
which are 50% of actual number @Haiyay @spectatorindex @ETFalpha

Par Value:                  5/-
Closing Price:           89.00
Total Shares Issued:          395321638.00
Market Capitalization:        35,183,625,782
EPS:             10.9
PE:                 8.165

Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg -4.07% 2018
http://j.mp/ajuMHJ

Every Listed Share can be interrogated here
http://www.rich.co.ke/rcdata/nsestocks.php

I have been writing about the risks for a while.
September 2016 - I wrote ''Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne
on ice'' and warned ''If volatility spikes, positions are going to be
reduced en masse.....What is clear is that we are at the fag-end of
this party''
05-FEB-2018 ::  I wrote of ''Halcyon Days'' and how the markets were
exiting its “halcyon days,” when storms do not occur. Today, the term
is used to denote a past period that is being remembered for being
happy and/or successfuL
And this weekend 14-MAY-2018 ::  The signal in the noise is the yield
on 10 year US treasuries, which yield is around 3%. If we move to
3.5%, we could see a further round of blood letting.
14-MAY-2018 :: This has all the ingredients for baking a good old
fashioned crisis.
Well There is a lot of Blood in the Water.
The Dollar is punching like Muhammed Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle -
hard and clean.
The Turkish Lira has crumbled, During the last couple of months,
emerging currencies have dropped more than 7% against the USD
These are testing times in EM and Frontier markets,
WTI Crude Oil is hovering around $71.00 and Brent Crude has crossed
$79.00 a barrel.
@Haiyay asked me on Twitter
How is it that KES-USD is so stable yet the Emerging market currencies
are taking a hit ?  Do we have above normal returns on equity and
treasuries compared with rest of emerging and frontier markets?
Nigeria Turkey, SA Rand..all on a losing streak @alykhansatchu
@hervegogo
I responded  The strength of the Shilling has confounded everyone for
eternity but it’s actually empirical and based on a surge in official
remittances which are 50% of actual number.
The closing Prices have not been received as i file this.

Safaricom bucked the downdraft and rebounded +4.587% to close at 28.50
and was trading at close to session highs at 29.00 +6.42% at the
finish Line. Equity Turnover clocked 5.022m shares worth 144.16m and
Buyers outpaced Sellers by a factor of 8.5-1, which is an imbalance
plain and simple. Citi issued an Update and I quote
''Results: Confident outlook may warrant small upgrade''
Investors will reap a handsome reward by Year End from these price levels.

Equity Bank was voted the best lender by the Think Business banking awards
“Equity and Citi Bank scored highly on financials,” said Ochieng Oloo,
founder of Think Business Limited. “But Equity got better marks on
customer satisfaction and deployment of technology.”
As I said at the time of the FY Earnings release Dr. Mwangi made a
very timely pivot after the Rate Cap was introduced and clearly has a
war-chest with which to chase the Opportunity once the Rate Act is
modified.
Equity Bank corrected -1.96% to close at 50.00 and traded 2.372m shares.

StanBic Holdings had 24 Buyers for each Seller and rallied +3.37% to
close at 92.00 on light trading as shares were in very short supply.
StanBic Holdings reported some startlingly good Q1 2018 numbers and
today StanBic Africa Holdings released a Tender Offer for the purchase
of 59m shares at a price of 95.00.

KCB Group firmed +1.00% to close at 50.50 and traded 1.820m shares
worth 92.57m.

EABL closed unchanged at 248.00 and traded 90,300 shares.

ARM Cement slumped -5.172% to close at a fresh 12+ year low of 5.50
[-57.69% in 2018 - Rick Ashley and Mr. Vora stepped aside last week].


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