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Macro Thoughts

Futures slid 7.3 percent in New York on Tuesday, putting prices on
track for their worst quarterly loss since the start of the last oil
market crash in late 2014.
West Texas Intermediate for January delivery fell $3.64 to $46.24 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest since Aug. 30,
2017. Total volume traded Tuesday was about 23 percent above the
100-day average.
In Midland, Texas, heart of the Permian shale basin that’s driven the
U.S. boom, prices broke below $40 a barrel, as buyers factored in
pipeline shortages that have pushed up transportation costs. Drillers
“will likely see harsher cuts to capital plans if WTI remains below
$50,” Houston investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. warned in a
note to clients.
Brent for February settlement lost $3.35 to $56.26 on London’s ICE
Futures Europe exchange. Even so, the front-month future settled at a
premium to the next contract for the first time since Nov. 5. The
global benchmark crude traded at a $9.66 premium to WTI for the same
month.
Bearish trends overwhelmed bullish developments including word that
unrest curtailed pumping in Libya’s biggest oilfield. Nonetheless,
oil, heating oil and gasoline all sank near or below technical support
levels, said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd.
in London.
Futures contracts “are in a world of pain,” he wrote in a note to clients.

Home Thoughts

The best-known “Nutcracker” is a ballet based on Alexander Dumas’
adaptation of Hoffman’s tale, with music by the Russian composer Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892, a
year before the Tchaikovsky’s death. More than a half-century later,
George Balanchine transformed it into an American classic.
CORTESE: When I was 12 or 13 there was a friend of the family who was
conducting “The Nutcracker” in Rome. I used to go to the rehearsals
and performances. I loved it. I loved the whole thing. I loved the
orchestra, I loved the rehearsals, I loved the performances, I loved
the music.
GAZETTE: What is it about the music that people find so compelling?
CORTESE: It’s a very colorful piece. It’s wonderful music. Also, there
is a great variety of moments. It’s really Tchaikovsky at the height
of his maturity. It’s one of his last great works, before his Sixth
Symphony, which was his last great work. If you compare the two you
see he took a very different approach. “The Nutcracker” is quite
light, and wonderfully entertaining, but it is certainly less deep and
less personal that the Sixth Symphony.

Anyone betting that Chinese President Xi Jinping would back down
quickly in a trade war with Donald Trump better think again.
Xi told a Beijing crowd including some of China’s most influential
political, military and business figures on Tuesday that the country’s
growing wealth and power had validated the Communist Party’s -- and
thus his own -- leadership. “No one is in the position to dictate to
the Chinese people what should and should not be done,” Xi said.
Xi’s speech -- an 80-minute recitation of party achievements --
outlined no new economic policies that might assuage investor concerns
about market access or the slowing economy. Instead, he reaffirmed
China’s pursuit of “indigenous innovation” in “core technologies.”
“2018 has been a very difficult year for Xi Jinping,” said Trey
McArver, co-founder of Beijing-based research firm Trivium China. “The
question going forward is how the system responds to all these
troubles bubbling up. Will the system adjust? Or will these problems
open up cracks in the system and undermine Xi’s authority and his
grand project?”
Rather than retreat, Xi vowed to press on. He offered long passages
about the party’s supremacy and the need to promote Marxist ideology.
Indeed, Xi has so far managed to consolidate more power than any
Chinese leader in a generation and keep the country’s economic
slowdown from getting out of control. His gestures on trade were
enough to secure a 90-day tariff cease-fire from Trump during their
summit in Argentina earlier this month.
The U.S. and China are planning to hold meetings next month to
negotiate a broader truce, although they’re unlikely to have any
face-to-face contact before then, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
told Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
“Despite significant economic headwinds, including the eruption of a
trade war with the U.S., Xi and his economic team managed to steer
clear of a significant slowdown or collapse of investor confidence,”
said Jude Blanchette, who analyzes Chinese politics at Crumpton Group,
an international advisory firm in Arlington, Va. “But for Xi and
China’s economy, a crisis averted is but a crisis delayed.”

But in some ways 2018 was unusually stable. It is on track to be only
the second year in a century without a coup d'état. The last head of
state overthrown was Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe in November 2017.
There have been 463 coup attempts worldwide since 1950, 233 of which
were successful. These undemocratic power transfers have sparked civil
wars, triggered authoritarian crackdowns and stunted economic growth.
Before 2018 the only other coup-free year in the past century was 2007.

As the Middle East ushers in 2019, the decade’s ruinous conflicts in
Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq seem to be winding down after exacting a
painful price — many thousands killed, millions uprooted from their
homes and entire cities reduced to rubble.
Yet the potential for unrest remains high, including in countries that
escaped civil war after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, such as
Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Millions of young people in the region
remain locked out of economic and political participation as
authoritarian governments fail to tackle soaring youth unemployment
and other deep-seated problems.
“I think 2019 is a very challenging year,” said analyst Amer Sabaileh
in Jordan, where weekly rallies against economic policies toppled a
prime minister this year and now take aim at his successor.
“I wonder what will happen with the rising sense of hopelessness among
broad populations,” said Jon Alterman at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. “Will people just put their heads
down and be miserable? Or will a sense that there is no public outlet,
no media outlet, lead to some sort of explosion, even if it’s not
specifically directed toward change?”
The destructive fallout from Arab Spring uprisings could serve as a
deterrent to some.

As long as the United States remains China's primary focus in 2019,
Beijing will seek to maintain stable relations with the powers on its
periphery, including India.
Once Indian elections conclude in May — and given that Pakistani
elections took place in 2018 — the two rivals will have the space to
restart negotiations stalled since 2016, even if the talks don't lead
to a resolution of their dispute over Kashmir. Pakistan, in
particular, wants to bring tensions to a more manageable level as its
military focuses on securing the volatile border with Afghanistan and
as Prime Minister Imran Khan's government explores the possibility of
trade talks with New Delhi.

To bolster its position in the Indo-Pacific, India will move to
strengthen relations not only with the United States but also with
Japan and Australia using a bilateral, more than a multilateral
approach, with emphasis on building its relationship with Japan,
especially. New governments in Bhutan, the Maldives and Bangladesh,
all of which have signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative will
lead India to renew its engagement with them. This analysis explains
more about India's strategic approach to China's growing presence.

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.

The postponement capped a tumultuous proceeding during which Sullivan
erupted at Flynn for his criminal behavior and pressed prosecutors on
whether they considered treason charges.
“You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as
the National Security Adviser to the president!” Sullivan yelled.
“Arguably, this undermines everything this flag over here stands for!
Arguably, you sold your country out!”
That prompted Flynn’s lawyers to request a short break. When court
resumed, prosecutors told Sullivan that Flynn’s work as a foreign
agent concluded in mid-November 2016 – and the judge issued an apology
for his fiery remarks.
“I felt terrible about that,” a retrospective Sullivan said, CBS News
Radio reporter Steven Portnoy tweeted. “I’m not suggesting he
committed treason.”
As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, Flynn had pleaded guilty to
one count of making false statements for lying to the FBI about
contact he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the end of
2016.
The judge set another court date, for a status hearing, for March 13,
according to tweets from reporters in the courtroom.

Flynn lied to FBI to conceal dealings with Russia
Yet Flynn's own personal legal jeopardy arose from dealings with Turkey
So why lie about conversations with Russian ambassador?
Not to protect himself, evidently. So who - and why?

Euro 1.1387
Dollar Index 96.88
Japan Yen 112.38
Swiss Franc 0.9923
Pound 1.2657
Aussie 0.7193
India Rupee 70.1395
South Korea Won 1123.85
Brazil Real 3.9125
Egypt Pound 17.9055
South Africa Rand 14.31180

The fundamental challenge for Facebook is this: It has represented
itself as an ‘’Infomediary’’ An infomediary works as a personal agent
on behalf of consumers to help them take control over information
gathered about them. The concept of the infomediary was first
suggested by John Hagel III in the book Net Worth. However, Facebook
has been hawking this information as if it were an intermediary. This
is its ‘’trust gap’’. That gap is set to widen further. Facebook is
facing an existentialist crisis.

“We had a bubble, it popped,” @novogratz tells @ErikSchatzker. Watch
the full interview on crypto’s 2018 collapse and what’s next ➡️
https://bloom.bg/2Ck3Tdo

Frontier Markets

Marc Ravalomanana, the 69-year-old former president who spent most of
his five years of exile in South Africa, vows to have his revenge
against 44-year-old Andry Rajoelina.
Ravalomanana, who beat all political odds to win Madagascar’s
Presidency in 2002 and retain in four years later, still battles with
a reputation for autocracy.
Rajoelina, the coup leader, must assuage fears that his big money
backing is not from those seeking to rape the island state’s natural
resources.
Whoever wins will have his work cut out restoring stability to a
country brought to its knees by political turmoil.

Le Parti @CnddFdd souhaite un très joyeux anniversaire à son
visionnaire SE @pnkurunziza, Président de la République du #Burundi.
Que Dieu l’accompagne toujours dans sa noble mission de servir et
guider le peuple vers un avenir radieux.
https://twitter.com/CnddFdd/status/1075042388807245824

Recent pledges of $2 billion in investment for South Sudan’s oil may
be just the start, with the war-torn nation expecting further
agreements in early 2019, its petroleum minister said.
Last month, a South African government fund pledged to invest $1
billion in oil exploration and the building of a refinery. Petroliam
Nasional Bhd of Malaysia has promised to put a further $300 million
into its operations, while Oranto Petroleum International Ltd. of
Nigeria has wagered $500 million on developing an oil block, and local
firm Trinity Energy has pledged $350 million. Gatkuoth said Russian,
Spanish and Emirati companies may soon join them.
If there’s peace and “you are not providing services to the people,
people will be angry,” Gatkuoth said. “So for us we will work day and
night for oil to be produced.”
Given the turmoil that’s roiled South Sudan for its seven years as an
independent nation and previous problems with oil exploration, it’s
unclear whether all the investment will come to fruition, according to
Harry Verhoeven, a lecturer at the School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University in Qatar.
All the same, the peace deal “does seem to have increased the appetite
of investors for the risky investment destination,” he said. “We’re
still talking MoU’s, which are statements of intent, not actual
investments, but potentially this could be pretty significant and
could allow for much greater production levels and soaring income for
the South Sudanese government.”

Ethiopia had an extraordinary year. It is a huge place, with 105m
people and a long history of tyranny and woe. A cold-war Marxist
regime slaughtered and starved multitudes. The guerrillas who
overthrew it looked to China for inspiration and loans. They had some
success in rebuilding a desolate economy, but also shot protesters and
virtually criminalised dissent. After tempers exploded following a
rigged election in 2015, the ruling party this year picked a reformist
leader, Abiy Ahmed, who has released political prisoners, largely
unmuzzled the media and promised to hold real elections in 2020. He
has made peace with Eritrea, opening a long-closed border and
restoring access to the sea. He is even trying to liberalise
Ethiopia’s debt-burdened, state-directed economy, where a phone
connection is harder to get than in anarchic Somalia next door. If
this were a contest for person of the year, Abiy might have won. But
we did not choose Ethiopia because it is far from clear that the new
prime minister will be able to curb ethnic violence. Separatists no
longer fear being shot by the security services; some are now trying
to create ethnically pure enclaves by driving minorities from their
homes. Perhaps 1.4m people have been displaced so far. Autocracies,
alas, seldom die quietly.

He is evidently a Virilian and Gladwellian Figure.

“To create one contagious movement, you often have to create many
small movements first.” “Look at the world around you. It may seem
like an immovable, implacable place. It is not, With the slightest
push—in just the right place—it can be tipped.”—Malcolm Gladwell .

In 2018, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed became the youngest head
of state in Africa, and one of the most talked-about in the world. In
less than nine months, he’s opened up the political space in Ethiopia,
changed the geopolitics in the horn of Africa, and is a serious
contender for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
Abiy Ahmed was only 13 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison,
but there have already been comparisons between the world icon and the
newly appointed Ethiopian prime minister. Abiy’s also a fan and wore a
lime-green T-shirt with an image of Mandela in a raised-fist salute,
above a slogan that read: “No one is free until the last one is free”
– ironically to a rally where there was an attempt on his life.

Both Abiy and Madiba have achieved the near-impossible: Mandela led
South Africa from apartheid to democracy, while Abiy led Ethiopia to
peace and more openness.

Dollar versus Rand 6 Month Chart INO 14.3118
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDZAR&v=d6&t=c&a=50&w=1

Egypt Pound versus The Dollar 3 Month Chart INO 17.9055
http://quotes.ino.com/charting/index.html?s=FOREX_USDEGP&v=d3&t=c&a=50&w=1

Egypt EGX30 Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CASE:IND

Nigeria All Share Bloomberg -19.40% 2018
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/NGSEINDX:IND

Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg -4.43% 2018
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GGSECI:IND

Africa-focussed private equity firm Emerging Capital Partners said on
Wednesday it has acquired a majority stake in Kenyan restaurant chain
Artcaffe Group, the latest sign of growing international private
equity investor interest in East Africa.
The move comes after ECP’s stake sale last year in Kenyan casual
dining and coffee chain Java House, which also has operations in
Uganda and Rwanda.
ECP sold Java House, the largest coffee shop chain in East Africa, to
buyout group Abraaj.
“There is immense opportunity in eastern Africa for casual dining
concepts. Alongside population growth and increased urbanization,
demand for international cuisine and casual, high-quality dining
experiences is rising,” ECP said in a statement.
The firm did not say how much it would pay for the “substantial
majority” stake in Artcaffe, which runs 26 outlets in Kenya’s capital
Nairobi, as well as a bakery, kitchen, and logistics centre that
supplies its restaurants.
A city of more than four million people, Nairobi is home to a growing
middle class and large expatriate population that has piqued the
interest of regional investors and global brands such as Yum Brands
Inc’s KFC and Pizza Hut.

Mobile commerce transactions accounted for 76 per cent of total
payment value, accounting for Sh1.55 trillion from 526.9 deals, 8.8
per cent increase compared to the previous quarter.
Person-to-person transfers were valued to Sh718.2 billion, with active
mobile money transfer subscription growing by 120,000 users to 29.79
million from 29.67 million by end of 2017.
Number of registered mobile money agents grew slightly during the
quarter under review to 218,495 from 206,940 in June.
Safaricom PlC’s M-Pesa continue to dominate the country’s money
transfer market, controlling Sh1.58 trillion of total transaction
value from 575.6 million transactions followed by Equitel Money which
accounted for Sh439.2 billion of total transaction value.
At least Sh1.37 billion were transacted via little known Mobile Pay
while Sh1.15 billion were channeled through Airtel Money. Only Sh197.1
million was transacted through Telkom’s T-Kash.

However, international incoming and outgoing mobile voice traffic
declined by 19.3 per cent and 8.9 per cent respectively, according to
data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) which linked the
trend to the increasing popularity of Internet calls.
The decline left international incoming mobile call minutes at 126.8
million while outgoing calls stood at 98.2 million minutes.
“This could be partly attributed to increased adoption and use of VoIP
services, which are relatively available and affordable,” observed CA
in a data report covering three months to end of September 2018.
Within the East African Community, minutes spent on incoming mobile
voice calls dropped by 7.9 per cent to 63 million minutes as those
spent on outgoing calls declined by 5.9 per cent to 45.2 minutes.

Nairobi All Share Bloomberg -17.02% 2018
http://www.BLOOMBERG.COM/quote/NSEASI:IND

HF hires former NIC Bank executive as its new CEO @BD_africa
https://bit.ly/2A5c5N7

Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg -25.13% 2018
http://j.mp/ajuMHJ

London-based private equity company Actis LLP has acquired the equity
interests of both the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the
African Infrastructure Investment Managers in the Kipeto Wind Power
project, making it the largest shareholder in Kenya’s second largest
wind farm.
Actis, which will now fund the 100MW project by 88 percent together
with Kenyan partner Craftskills Wind Energy International at 12
percent, will also rope in senior debt from the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (“OPIC”) - the US Government’s development
finance institution.
The wind power plant located in Kajiado County will be Kenya’s second
largest wind farm after the Turkana Wind Power project which has a
generation capacity of 310MW.
The deal will now see the complete exit of the World Bank financing
arm from the project originally conceived by Craftskills Wind Energy
International, with support from US multinational conglomerate General
Electric (“GE”).
The power plant already inked a power purchasing deal with Kenya Power
  in 2016, meaning the country will soon benefit from cheaper wind
generated power as Kenya continues to push for less expensive green
energy sources.