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Thursday 27th of September 2018 |
Morning Africa |
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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 |
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12-SEP-2016 :: Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice Africa |
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.
Conclusions
It took a long time to unwind but unwind it will
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"The UK is on the verge of financial and constitutional chaos, caught like a "frog in the water" before it is boiled' @trevorw1953 Africa |
The UK is on the verge of financial and constitutional chaos, caught like a “frog in the water” before it is boiled, according to the former head of the CBI in a stark warning on the disastrous state of Brexit negotiations.
Commenting on the snub delivered to prime minister Theresa May at last week’s Salzburg summit of EU leaders, Mike Rake, formerly president of the employers’ organisation and chairman of BT, said: “We are on the edge of a constitutional and possibly an economic crisis. The referendum result has already damaged our economy, reputation and influence in the world. We risk being the frog in the water.”
Home Thoughts
I was thinking about my GrandMother's sister who was a Seller of Hats in the Mombasa Old Town and an extraordinary herbalist. All that knowledge disappeared with her.
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How Isolated Trump Insulted Allies and Dismissed the World at UN @BPOLITICS Law & Politics |
President Donald Trump arrived at the United Nations this week looking to rally global support against Iran and show that his policies on North Korea were lowering the risk of nuclear war. By Wednesday, he made clear he didn’t care whether he persuaded anyone. "It doesn’t matter what world leaders think on Iran,” he said after absorbing criticism from America’s allies up close, insisting that “Iran’s going to come back to me and make a deal.” The comment was emblematic of Trump’s entire approach at a meeting many world leaders use to help narrow divides, not widen them. After doubling down on his “America First” approach, with its insistence on national sovereignty and rejection of globalism, he’ll leave New York this week with allies and adversaries as frustrated as ever with the U.S. over issues from trade to climate change to Iran’s nuclear program. “The world loathes what Trump says, but they pay deep attention to the new credible threats of economic and military coercion,” said Charles Lipson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago. “Trump sees the old international order as fundamentally unsustainable.” As his UN trip wound down, Trump declined to acknowledge the distress he appeared to have left in his wake. Asked about the laughter that greeted the opening of his General Assembly speech, the U.S. president said the audience was laughing with him, not at him. “We had fun,” Trump said. “People had a good time with me.”
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U.S.-China Military Tensions Start to Rise as Trade War Deepens @bpolitics Law & Politics |
As a trade war heats up between the U.S. and China, military tensions are also rising. China on Tuesday refused a U.S. warship entry to Hong Kong next month, according to the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, and Beijing’s top naval officer canceled a high-level meeting with his U.S. counterpart after being recalled to China, according to Lieutenant Colonel Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman. The moves come as a worsening trade war prompts concern in Beijing over whether President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs are part of a master plan to stop China from threatening American dominance of the Indo-Pacific. The Trump administration last week levied unprecedented penalties on a Chinese military procurement agency and its director for allegedly purchasing Russian combat aircraft, claiming a violation of U.S. sanctions. “It all adds up,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, who teaches U.S.-China relations at Hong Kong Baptist University. “It plays into the hands of the conservatives like Xi Jinping in China’s leadership that Trump’s real intent is to contain China’s rise.” Trump’s latest assault came Wednesday when he accused China of trying to interfere in coming U.S. midterm elections in November. Trump said he had evidence, but didn’t provide any. He also said he and Xi might no longer be friends. “We do not and will not interfere in any country’s domestic affairs,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a session of the United Nations Security Council, through a translator. “We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.” The U.S. State Department said its sanctions on the Chinese military’s Equipment Development Department -- which oversees China’s defense technology -- weren’t intended to undermine the military capabilities or combat readiness of any country, but rather to impose costs on Russia in response to alleged interference in the U.S. election process. Among Russia’s arms customers, only China has been targeted by American sanctions. The list of Chinese grievances against the Trump administration has mounted since the president unleashed his trade war, placing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods. “In China, they are debating how they can respond and there are hawks who say, ‘We have to strike back,’” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. The country’s military actions this week are a way of “showing displeasure without crossing the line into something more serious.” China has employed similar messaging in the past. In 2016, Beijing denied a U.S. carrier strike group’s request for a Hong Kong port visit during a period of heightened tension with the U.S. over the South China Sea. Washington has also adeptly deployed the tactic. To protest China’s militarization of artificial structures it has created in the waters, the U.S. earlier this year disinvited the Chinese from participating in the 2018 Rim of the Pacific exercises -- drills held in the Pacific every two years that bring together the militaries of two dozen nations. China will likely continue finding ways to express its dissatisfaction, without derailing its attempts to resolve the trade war via conciliation. Beijing took umbrage in August, when U.S. senators pushed for sanctions against seven Chinese officials and two surveillance equipment manufacturers after reports that China is forcing as many as 1 million Muslims into “re-education” camps in its far western region of Xinjiang. On Monday, China’s Defense Ministry issued a sharply worded statement expressing dissatisfaction after the U.S. approved the sale of a $330 million military equipment package to Taiwan. Taiwan has been an escalating point of tension between the U.S. and China since Trump’s election. Before he took office, he tweeted about his protocol-breaking phone conversation with Tsai Ing-wen, the island’s Beijing-skeptic president. He subsequently questioned the One-China policy, which has guided U.S.-China ties since the 1970s. The British warship HMS Albion sailed by the Chinese-occupied Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea earlier this month, adding to China’s sense that countries were joining forces with the U.S. to stymie its expansion in the waters -- of which Beijing claims more than 80 percent -- said Koh. An international arbitration panel in the Hague ruled in 2016 that China’s claims have no legal standing. France’s Defense Minister Florence Parly said at June’s Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore that French and British naval forces would sail together through “certain areas” in the South China Sea. The U.S. Navy routinely conducts freedom of so-called freedom of navigation operations to demonstrate its right to sail there. Japan this month held a submarine exercise in the South China Sea. It led Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang to caution that the “relevant non-regional country” should refrain from undermining peace and security.
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India wins, China loses in Maldives election @asiatimesonline Law & Politics |
Abdulla Yameen, the pro-China president of the Maldives, conceded electoral defeat today (September 24) to opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, widely viewed as an ally of India. Solih won a resounding 58.3% of the popular vote, but a delighted New Delhi could not wait until the final tally was announced to heap diplomatic praise on the democratic result. Beijing has not yet reacted to the outcome of an election that was widely viewed as a proxy battle for which side the small island republic will take in the two Asian giants’ battle for influence in a strategically important part of the Indian Ocean. To be sure, China and the Maldives’ friendly relations predated Yameen’s rise to power in 2013. But it was during his presidency — and much to the chagrin of the country’s traditional ally India — that much closer ties were developed. In September 2014, China’s president Xi Jinping visited the Maldives and a deal was struck with a Chinese firm to upgrade its international airport, which is located on Hulhule, a separate island near the capital Male. China also undertook to build a 1.4-kilometer bridge linking Hulhule with Male which was completed on August 30 this year and then inaugurated by Yameen. In December 2014, only two months after Xi’s visit, the Maldives signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Beijing in support of Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one of the first countries worldwide to do so. They were also coming together strategically. Earlier this year China and the Maldives announced plans to build a Joint Ocean Observation Station in Makunudhoo, the westernmost atoll in the north. A writer for The Times of India wrote at the time that the proposed facility would “allow the Chinese a vantage point of an important Indian Ocean shipping route…[and] effectively open a Chinese maritime front against India.” Whether that is the case — or if the Chinese are simply interested in keeping a close eye on vital shipping lines, including those that transport its oil imports from the Middle East — is open to speculation. But the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), part of the alliance that supported Solih at the recent election, suggested at the time that it could be used for military purposes. It was a strategic red line that India did not want China to cross, but what India could do to prevent it from happening was never made clear by Indian security officials and analysts. The Maldives is a tiny country in terms of area and population — only 417,000 people live on its 298 square kilometers of land — but its more than 1,000 coral islands and atolls cover a huge maritime area stretching 750 kilometers from the north to the south. Because of its proximity to India, New Delhi has always considered it to be within its regional sphere of influence. That’s been seen in past Indian interventions to quell unrest in the archipelago. India, which was effectively sidelined under Yameen, will surely do what it can to back up the new president’s claim to power through a peaceful and stable transition. How China will react to Solih’s election and its likely loss of influence in an island nation that has become strategically important to its rising regional interests remains to be seen.
Conclusions
This is noteworthy because Xi Jinping had specifically targeted Indian ocean Islands at FOCAC. Furthermore it means that India has won a small victory but don't forget Xi is in Gwadar, He is the Plateau and in Hambantota.
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2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit: Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the opening ceremony Law & Politics |
September has just set in Beijing, bringing with it refreshing breeze and picturesque autumn scenery. As an ancient Chinese scholar once observed, “Only with deep roots can a tree yield rich fruit; only filled with oil can a lamp burn brightly.” In addition, for those of Africa’s least developed countries, heavily indebted and poor countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing countries that have diplomatic relations with China, the debt they have incurred in the form of interest-free Chinese government loans due to mature by the end of 2018 will be exempted.
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06-AUG-2018 :: The Indian Ocean Economy and a Port Race. @TheStarKenya Law & Politics |
Today from Massawa, Eritrea [admittedly on the Red Sea] to Djibouti, from Berbera to Mogadishu, from Lamu to Mombasa to Tanga to Bagamoyo to Dar Es Salaam, through Beira and Maputo all the way to Durban and all points in between we are witnessing a Port race of sorts as everyone seeks to get a piece of the Indian Ocean Port action. China [The BRI initiative], the Gulf Countries [who now appear to see the Horn of Africa as their hinter- land], Japan and India [to a lesser degree] are all jostling for optimal ‘’geo-economic’’ positioning. Overlay the Geopolitics and its worth noting that the Geopolitics has become much more fluid. Fluidity has been engendered by the spectacular arrival of Prime Minister Abiy in Ethiopia [which is land-locked, of course but a key Future Taker of Port facilities] who has made peace with President Afawerki’s Eritrea and is surely set to undercut Djibouti and even LAPPSET, both Projects which seem to me to have been predicated to some degree on a permanent Freeze between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Investments in Ports have a long lead time and I am not certain that those same investments are able to re-calibrate at the speed with which the Geopolitics is moving. The Big Risk is that some these Port investments will be ‘’Hambanota’’-ed.
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Rupee Rout Prompts India to Raise Taxes on $12 Billion of Goods @markets Emerging Markets |
India raised customs duties on products ranging from aviation fuel to footwear as it seeks to narrow the current-account deficit and support the rupee. The taxes on 19 items, imports of which were valued at 860 billion rupees ($12 billion) in the financial year ended March, will be effective Thursday, the finance ministry said in a statement Wednesday. While Indonesia’s rupiah has lost about 9 percent against the dollar this year, India’s rupee has dropped more than 12 percent, as rising oil prices push the nation’s trade deficit wider and fuel inflation.
Frontier Markets
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Someone tell Ghana that it isn't 2017 anymore @FinancialTimes Africa |
Ghana is planning to sell $5-10bn of debt that will not mature for 100 years, as the first tranche of what will grow to become a $50bn fundraising. This should be interesting. Ghana finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta discussed the plan in an interview in Accra on Tuesday, elaborating on comments made earlier this month by the country’s president Nana Akufo-Addo during a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing. “We hope to issue this bond as a shelf offering with zero interest in the first five years,” Mr Ofori-Atta said in the interview. The GDP of Ghana is around $47bn and it has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 65 per cent. No African nation has done a century bond before, and only a handful have sold 30-year debt in the last couple of years. Last year, such an — ahem — optimistic project might have stood a slim chance of finding a sympathetic ear among investors. After all, Tajikistan managed to raise $500m to finance a Soviet-era dam project and Argentina sold a $2.75bn century bond. It's fair to say a certain sense of exuberance was at large among emerging market sovereign debt investors. Since then, unfortunately for Ghana, matters have evolved somewhat. The IMF is worried about the risks that emerging economies are taking in the debt markets. Meanwhile the summer sell-off which began in currencies has rippled out to debt markets, eroding issuers’ ability to finance ambitious debt structures. Argentina's century bond, sold at a yield of 7.9 per cent, now trades at around 9.13 per cent. Investors are not in the mood to contemplate $10bn of 100-year Ghanaian debt. “It beggars belief,” said Kevin Daly, a portfolio manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments. “Really? That was my first response when I heard about it — really? It’s one thing for Argentina to do it — and people were shaking their heads about that — but we were in a much more benign environment back then. They would have an extremely difficult time trying to persuade people to buy anything of that magnitude and maturity.” In capital markets terms this is not just a moon shot, it’s a mission to Mars. Good luck Ghana, and whoever’s advising you.
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@WorldBank approves first loans to Somalia in 30 years @ReutersAfrica Africa |
The World Bank has approved $80 million in loans to Somalia to fund public finance reforms, marking the first disbursement to the government of the conflict-ridden country in 30 years, the bank said. Last week, the International Monetary Fund said it expected the economy to grow by 3.1 percent this year from 2.3 percent in 2017, as it recovers from drought last year.
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Nairobi has hit back at Dar es Salaam by imposing new tariffs on Tanzania products like flour @BD_Africa Kenyan Economy |
Nairobi has hit back at Dar es Salaam by imposing new tariffs on Tanzania products like flour after the neighbouring country ignored a deal that granted Kenyan-made chocolate, ice cream, biscuits and sweets unrestricted entry into its market. This came after Tanzania and Kenya failed to resolve the trade war sparked by use of imported materials in goods made in the countries, setting the stage for a fresh round of the trade war. Tanzania maintains that it has retained 25 per cent import duty on Kenyan-made confectioneries such as chocolate, ice cream, biscuits and sweets, citing use of imported industrial sugar. Tanzania will also continue to levy 25 per cent duty on Kenya’s edible oils as well as the Tembo cement brand produced by Bamburi Cement Factory which it says are made from imported palm and clinker respectively.
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N.S.E Today |
The US Fed raised interest rates a quarter point to a target range of 2% to 2.25%. In a brilliant Pivot [because its Vladimir's finger prints which are all over the 2016 Election] President Trump pronounced that Chinese interference in the US at "unacceptable level" U.S.-China Military Tensions have also ratcheted higher. China on Tuesday refused a U.S. warship entry to Hong Kong next month. The Election in Maldives has geopolitical ramifications. The Indians who have been surrounded from the Doklam Plateau to Gwadar to Hambantota will consider the Opposition's victory as sand in the eye of Xi Jinping but make no mistake Xi has Narendra surrounded. The Indian Ocean is a contested zone. "She's [First Lady] making a big trip to Africa," President rump said "We both love Africa. Africa is so beautiful, the most beautiful part of the world, in many ways." Oil prices are at a 4 year High and the likes of Total are predicting a triple digit price per barrel. The Nairobi All Share pushed +0.50 points higher to close at 150.60 The Nairobi NSE20 Index rose +2.16 points to close at 2891.40 All the Indices closed higher there was a significant loss in momentum signalling we could turn lower.
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N.S.E Equities - Commercial & Services |
Safaricom closed unchanged at 24.75 and traded 14.903m shares worth 372.144m. Safaricom entered a bear market Friday, reversed out of the Bear on Monday and currently sits +3.125% the bear market level. I do not expect the Excise Duty increase to slow down the M-Pesa curve meaningfully. This is a Buy Zone.
Deacons slumped -9.09% to close at an all time low of 50cents and is -85.71% in 2018.
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N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment |
KCB Group rowed back -0.51% to close at 40.50 and traded 3.411m shares worth 138.624m. Equity Group closed unchanged at 40.00 and transacted 3.173m shares. DTB Kenya firmed +2.339% to close at 175.00.
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N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied |
KenGen firmed +1.515% to close at 6.70. Kenyan's share price shipped some contagion off Kenya Power but I expect a substantial widening of the KenGen and KPLC spread in favour of KenGen. KPLC closed unchanged at a record Low of 4.60 and remains -46.875% through 2018.
EABL was up-ticked +2.702% to close at 190.00 on just 700 shares of business
Bamburi Cement closed -0.68% at a 2018 Low of 147.00 and traded 327,900 shares. Bamburi is -17.5% in 2018 and trades on a Trailing PE Ratio of 32.37. ARM Cement announced ''The extension of suspension in trading of the company’s shares is for a further twenty one (21) working days with effect from September 28, 2018''
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