| |
Friday 07th of September 2018
|
Morning Africa |
Register and its all Free.
If you are tracking the NSE Do it via RICHLIVE and use Mozilla Firefox
as your Browser.
0930-1500 KENYA TIME
Normal Board - The Whole shebang
Prompt Board Next day settlement
Expert Board All you need re an Individual stock.
The Latest Daily PodCast can be found here on the Front Page of the site
http://www.rich.co.ke |
| read more |
|
Why the big bang was not the beginning @newscientist Africa |
WE ARE told it was big, yet it was probably unimaginably small. We are
told there was a bang, yet there was apparently no sound, and no space
for anything to explode into. Some think it might have happened
multiple times, so even its definite article is in doubt.
Although everyone has heard of the big bang, no one can say
confidently what it was like. After all, recounting the beginning of
time is about finding not just the right words, but the right physics
– and ever since the big bang entered the popular lexicon, that
physics has been murky.
Perhaps no longer, thanks to an unusual way of delving into our
universe’s backstory that has emerged over the past few years. In this
view, the essence of space and time can exist beyond the confines of
the cosmos, but in a state of roiling chaos we would not recognise.
The big bang is not a hard-and-fast beginning, but a moment of
profound transformation – one quite different from anything most of us
could have imagined.
Though often misattributed to the US astronomer Edwin Hubble, the
basic idea of the big bang dates back to the Belgian priest and
astronomer Georges Lemaître, who observed in the late 1920s that the
universe is expanding. Extrapolating backwards, Lemaître imagined a
“primeval atom” that ballooned into everything we see today.
|
| read more |
|
a tsantsa, or shrunken, mummified head with hair from the Shuar, a group of Jivaroan peoples from the Ecuadorean Amazon @financialtimes Africa |
The museum displayed a tsantsa, or shrunken, mummified head with hair
from the Shuar, a group of Jivaroan peoples from the Ecuadorean
Amazon. According to a museum file, shrunken heads, which were used as
war trophies, were made by “removing the skull from the skin, leaving
the hair”, which “made the skin shrink without losing its
physiognomy.”
|
| read more |
|
"China remains the linchpin. If the trade war sinks China's economy, the emerging world and rest of Asia will inevitably feel the full gravity of the downforce." Africa |
China’s growing share of the global economy means its familiar role as
the bulwark between emerging market pain and developed economies has
never been more crucial.
This year’s turmoil in markets across Argentina, Turkey, South Africa
and now spreading to Asia has done little damage to the growth outlook
for most developed economies. Indeed, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell has showed little sign he’ll slow the pace of monetary
tightening, which is causing so many strains across the developing
world.
If the slowdown in China’s economy gets much worse though, it’ll be a
different story. The $12 trillion economy faces fresh challenges as
Donald Trump mulls new U.S. tariffs on up to $200 billion of Chinese
imports, which may be announced as soon as this week.
China makes up about 15 percent of the global economy versus just 3
percent during the Asian crisis two decades ago and contributes more
than 30 percent of global growth. It’s the biggest trading partner for
many emerging markets and the largest buyer of many commodities they
rely on.
"China is the locomotive that keeps the EM train rolling along," said
Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC Holdings
Plc in Hong Kong. "Slowing growth in China thus poses an especially
acute challenge to emerging markets, after already grappling with
higher dollar funding costs for their debt."
In an extreme scenario that few are expecting, a hard landing for
China would unleash a "tsunami of contagion" according to Rajiv
Biswas, Asia Pacific Chief Economist at IHS Markit.
"The shock waves of contagion would also spread more widely to other
global emerging markets, notably commodity exporting nations, as world
commodity prices for key commodities such as iron ore, copper and
aluminum would also fall sharply," says Biswas.
Conclusions
|
| read more |
|
Stalking Bubbles: Paul Tudor Jones 1987-1990 Insecurity Analysis Africa |
I don’t want to encourage anyone to adopt a global macro strategy, or
to look for bubbles to short, or even to actively trade in general.
Rather, I think of Jones’s extensive comments as a kind of case study.
His principles have been studied by generations of traders. How does
this episode illustrate his philosophy? What can we learn about his
decision-making process? How did he implement his ideas?
“The week of the crash was one of the most exciting periods of my
life.” Paul Tudor Jones[1]
The year 1987 made Paul Tudor Jones famous as the man who had
predicted the crash. Jones had started his firm Tudor Investment Corp.
three years earlier after years as a commodity pit trader. In the
summer of 1987, he was profiled by Barron’s and discussed his bearish
outlook on the U.S. stock market. Jones thesis rested on two key
ideas. First, Jones used an “analog model” that his research director
Peter Borish had developed. The model was an overlay chart of the
stock markets of the 1920’s and the 1980’s and showed an
“astonishingly robust” correlation. Jones also pointed to a chart
showing the Dow Jones Industrial’s deviation from its trend. Prior
spikes had occurred in 1836, 1929, and 1966 - all followed by bear
markets. He observed that there was exuberance in other markets (for
example, in fine art), and noted some troubling debt and economic
statistics.[2]
In the article, Peter Borish admitted to “fudging the exercise
somewhat by juggling the starting periods”. Nevertheless, the bearish
outlook paid in spades on October 19. On the day of the crash, Jones
covered his short position and went long bonds, expecting the Fed to
ease financial conditions. That month he made 62%.[3]
“I feel that you have to start getting short now because the panic,
when it comes, will be so violent and sudden that the longs won’t be
able to get out nor the shorts get aboard.” Paul Tudor Jones, June
1987[4]
|
| read more |
|
Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice Emerging Markets |
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.
|
| read more |
|
[The End of] Halcyon Days @TheStarKenya Emerging Markets |
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.
|
| read more |
|
Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, was shot dead in the presidential buildings in Ouagadougou on 15 October 1987 @LRB Africa |
he day before the assassination I got a call from Sankara. This was a
first. We knew each other well but, until then, his aide had always
called me before putting the president on the line. This time, his
lively voice took me by surprise. We were of the same generation: he
was 37, I was 30. ‘Hey Stephen, how are you these days? You know it’s
really getting very tense here in Ouaga. I think you should come, it’s
urgent, don’t hang around.’ These were not his exact words. But the
contrived levity, the hint of imminent danger and the discreet appeal
for support are what I remember of that short, one-sided conversation.
As always, Sankara pretended to be in control of the forces unleashed
by his revolution. He was a high-spirited figure impelled by a
‘historic mission’ – Pan-Africanist, Marxist, anti-imperialist – and
made light of fear and uncertainty.
A little more than 24 hours later he was dead. The news spread quickly
in Ivory Coast. I remember improvised candlelit vigils with his
picture in the streets, mourners humming laments, and occasional
shouts of ‘France assassine!’ or ‘Le Vieux l’a tué!’ ‘Le Vieux’ was
Ivory Coast’s octogenarian president Félix Houphouët-Boigny, a pillar
of the postcolonial Franco-African state better known as la
Françafrique. I was in a state of shock, Sankara’s words echoing in my
ears. But I was enough of a journalist to send a telex to Blaise
Compaoré, second in command in the ruling quartet of young army
officers that Sankara had headed. Compaoré’s response was prompt. He
told me to come, and said he had given orders to let me across the
border: Burkina Faso had been sealed off and its airspace closed to
traffic. After a night and a day of a wild driving – more than a
thousand kilometres north from Abidjan to Ouagadougou – I sat in front
of Compaoré in the presidential buildings.
The room was familiar: we had often met here before, in the presence
of Sankara, Compaoré’s closest friend, his ‘brother’. Sankara had been
a mercurial, lively presence; Compaoré had always seemed slower but
also more solid. I remember the long silences more clearly than the
few words we exchanged. I was caked in dust and sweat, fresh from the
road, exhausted but on edge. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on
his knees, speaking in his familiar soft tone of ‘Thomas’, his
comrade, and the ‘tragedy’ of his death. He was a model of
taciturnity, perplexity and grief. ‘Now go and do your job,’ he said
eventually. ‘Find out what happened.’ I gathered up my bulky tape
recorder, surprised that he hadn’t suggested an interview, that he
didn’t want to edit the first draft of history. Or maybe that had been
his reason for inviting me into the country, but then he changed his
mind.
It didn’t take long to reconstruct the fatal chain of events. Twelve
men had died with Sankara, but one of his aides, Alouna Traoré, had
escaped. Friends in town tipped me off about his location. I met him
the following night, in a small adobe house in a neighbourhood of
unpaved roads, by the light of a kerosene lamp. He was unscathed but
extremely tense. He had attended Sankara’s last meeting, which had
started shortly after 4 p.m. The president had just come from a
collective workout and was wearing a red tracksuit. After less than
half an hour, shots erupted in an adjacent courtyard. Sankara sprang
up. ‘Stay in here,’ he ordered, ‘it’s me they want!’ Leaving the room
unarmed, with his hands in the air, he was met by a volley of gunfire.
A commando led by Hyacinthe Kafando, a member of Compaoré’s security
detail, burst into the room, spraying it with bullets. Traoré was
lucky that Kafando and his men left the premises to requisition
prisoners in town to clean up the scene. He snuck out before the
bodies were removed at nightfall and buried in shallow graves. A
medical officer issued a death certificate to the effect that the
president had died of ‘natural causes’. I learned later from one of
Sankara’s closest advisers that he had begun his last day by drafting
a speech which he intended to deliver that evening before the
Revolutionary Military Organisation. He had been going to announce a
‘purification’. The word is ambivalent but those who pre-empted his
move clearly thought that he had decided on a purge.
I found Sankara disarmingly sincere, utterly engaging and even
prophetic. He was a cumulonimbus in a region desperate for rain, a
‘third way’ in Cold War Africa, a youthful maker and breaker
challenging the regional tradition of gerontocratic rule. But the
downpour never came. He spent most of his time in office speaking in
the name of ‘the people’ who were now supposed to be able to speak for
themselves, and never sought an electoral mandate from his fellow
citizens. Executed at the behest of his brother in arms, he has become
a martyr. But to what cause? Will Sankara continue to haunt his
country’s history as the wraith of an overnight transformation that
led nowhere?
|
| read more |
|
NOV 14 ::Ouagadougou's Signal to Sub-Sahara Africa Africa |
What’s clear is that a very young, very informed and very connected
African youth demographic [many characterise this as a ‘demographic
dividend’] – which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic
terminator – is set to alter the existing equilibrium between the
rulers and the subjects, and a re-balancing has begun.
|
| read more |
|
Ethiopia PM says China will restructure railway loan @ReutersAfrica Africa |
“During our stay, we had the opportunity to enact limited
restructuring of some of our loans. In particular, the loan for the
Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway which was meant to be paid over 10 years
has now been extended to 30 years. Its maturity period has also been
extended,” Abiy told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa,
upon return from a summit in China.
|
| read more |
|
Technical Signals Flash Glimmer of Hope for South Africa's Rand 15.3324 Africa |
Momentum indicators suggest the rand is due for a rebound. The
dollar’s one-week relative strength index versus the rand reached 74
on Thursday, well above the 70 level that some traders see as a signal
that the South African currency is oversold. The last time the gauge
was at this level, in mid-January 2016, it heralded a three-month, 17
percent rally in the South African currency.
|
| read more |
|
|
|
|
