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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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30-MAY-2016 :: @CBKKenya Governor @Njorogep is the Real Deal, @TheStarKenya Africa |
It was indeed a pleasure hosting the 21st century governor and now Central Banker of the Year (according to African Development Bank) - Dr. Patrick Njoroge at Mindspeak this weekend. It was a full house and we had to turn people away. I was what’s called a ‘short-end’ trader and ran ‘short- end’ trading desks. If you think of the maturity spectrum as a continuum, the short-end is zero to two years, two to five is the middle of the curve and further than five out to even a 100 years is the ‘long-end’. e short-end of the curve is essentially hyper-sensitive to interest rate moves and if you wish to develop some expertise in this area, you, of course, have to concentrate fully on the central banker, who is the individual with the pistol when it comes to interest rates. I have studied central bankers for eternity, from the folks at the Bundesbank, Trichet, through Greenspan. I have weighed their words and even went as far as to study facial expressions. My first point and take it from me, is that Dr. Njoroge ranks right up there.
He was a viral ‘Tour De Force’ clocking close to 40 million impressions ahead of and during Mindspeak forum. at is a big number pure and simple.The governor spoke for 90 minutes and covered just about everything USAID gives local firms Sh380 million to promote valuable agriculture projects
1. “The exchange rate is stable.”
The currency is at a nine-month high and that is after a 100 basis point rate cut. The shilling is ‘teflon while currencies are crashing all over Africa and its stability is entirely correlated to the governor’s bona fides.
2. “Current account deficit for 2016 we expect 5.5 per cent to GDP”
This has been a perennial challenge for Kenya but the trend has improved dramatically in part because the price of oil [even after a near plus 80 per cent snap-back since January) remains benign and oil is the single biggest expense item for Kenya Inc.
3. “Th e most important asset for any bank and the industry is trust”
Dr. Njoroge said: ‘’ The future in the banking sector is about transparency, governance and effective business models’’. Going by the first quarter earnings releases seen so far, the banks have gotten with the Njoroge Programme.
4. “Our first duty is to the depositors”
These are real people not just numbers.
5. “How many people who collapsed banks are in jail?”
None. So we need to provide strong evidence to ensure they are jailed”
The governor said definitively that the ‘’perpetrators of Dubai Bank fraud will be made accountable.’’ Regarding Imperial Bank, he said: “Never before had so few robbed so much from so many.” He termed the fraud as ‘’a crime of opportunity with the use of IT systems.’’ He called the Chase Bank ‘’Islamic banking’’ excuse a gimmick. The governor said he was likely to take an office in the Law Courts this year as he prosecutes these cases.
6. ‘’The most important thing in most AGMs has always been on power banks & umbrellas, that has to change”
There was a heavy-weight Boxer called Evander ‘ e Real Deal’ Holyfield. I posit Dr. Patrick is ‘ The Real Deal’ Njoroge.
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Bond Traders Say Don't Count Out June Hike After Yellen Remarks @business Africa |
Yellen’s remark that the Fed will raise rates "probably in the coming months" drove benchmark two-year note yields higher for a third consecutive week. The comments at an afternoon appearance at Harvard University followed those from other Fed officials who signaled that the Federal Open Market Committee’s June 14-15 meeting is "live.”
The market-implied probability of a rate increase next month has risen to 30 percent, from 12 percent at the end of April. For the following meeting, in July, the chances exceed 50 percent. The shift in sentiment shows traders may be giving more credence to the Fed’s projection of two more rate boosts this year, after policy makers lifted their overnight benchmark from near zero in December.
Home Thoughts
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The Triumph of Roberto Bolano Africa |
Roberto Bolaño was an exemplary literary rebel. To drag fiction toward the unknown he had to go there himself, and then invent a method with which to represent it. Since the unknown place was reality, the results of his work are multi-dimensional, in a way that runs ahead of a critic’s one-at-a-time powers of description. Highlight Bolaño’s conceptual play and you risk missing the sex and viscera in his work. Stress his ambition and his many references and you conjure up threats of exclusive high-modernist obscurity, or literature as a sterile game, when the truth is it’s hard to think of a writer who is less of a snob, or—in the double sense of exposing us to unsavory things and carrying seeds for the future—less sterile.
We follow Bolaño into digressions, and with the weak intuition of a dream we sense him playing with the tools of genre: halfway through, a scene might vaguely take on a quality of thriller, porn, or fable. Every so often a character might start to discuss the problems of semblances and metaphors that reveal or conceal. This is the doubt-raising problem of representation itself. Yet there are scenes that feel like they could be there for no other reason than to memorialize a vivid incident Bolaño might have witnessed, and which arrive in the novel like assertive, physically present ambassadors from life. Because there are many references to painting, and because the plot seems at times to move invisibly, as if unable to break out of stasis, the visual starts to take on great importance.
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Text of President Obama's Speech in Hiroshima, Japan @nytimes Law & Politics |
Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.
Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.
Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.
It is not the fact of war that sets Hiroshima apart. Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood used these tools not just for hunting but against their own kind. On every continent, the history of civilization is filled with war, whether driven by scarcity of grain or hunger for gold, compelled by nationalist fervor or religious zeal. Empires have risen and fallen. Peoples have been subjugated and liberated. And at each juncture, innocents have suffered, a countless toll, their names forgotten by time.
Yet in the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction. How the very spark that marks us as a species, our thoughts, our imagination, our language, our toolmaking, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will — those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction.
Every great religion promises a pathway to love and peace and righteousness, and yet no religion has been spared from believers who have claimed their faith as a license to kill.
The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well.
That is why we come to this place. We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.
For this, too, is what makes our species unique. We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story, one that describes a common humanity, one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted.
The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening.
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it "never happened .... Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. It didn't matter..." Law & Politics |
Harold Pinter, that it “never happened …Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. It didn’t matter … “. Pinter expressed a mock admiration for what he called “a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
On Obama’s watch, a second cold war is under way. The Russian president is a pantomime villain; the Chinese are not yet back to their sinister pig-tailed caricature – when all Chinese were banned from the United States – but the media warriors are working on it.
In its mammoth war game in 2015, Operation Talisman Sabre, the US practiced “choking” the Straits of Malacca through which pass most of China’s oil and trade. This was not news.
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Venezuela Drifts Into New Territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown NYT Emerging Markets |
CARACAS, Venezuela — The courts? Closed most days. The bureau to start a business? Same thing. The public defender’s office? That’s been converted into a food bank for government employees.
Step by step, Venezuela has been shutting down.
This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory.
In recent weeks, the government has taken what may be one of the most desperate measures ever by a country to save electricity: A shutdown of many of its offices for all but two half-days each week.
But that is only the start of the country’s woes. Electricity and water are being rationed, and huge areas of the country have spent months with little of either.
Many people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a dispute between the government and phone companies over currency regulations and rates.
Coca-Cola Femsa, the Mexican company that bottles Coke in the country, has even said it was halting production of sugary soft drinks because it was running out of sugar.
Last week, protests turned violent in parts of the country where demonstrators demanded empty supermarkets be resupplied. And on Friday, the government said it would continue its truncated workweek for an additional 15 days.
Continue reading the main story
“There’s been plenty of problems, but one thing I haven’t seen until now is protests simply to get food,” said David Smilde, a Caracas-based analyst for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group, referring to the demonstrations last week.
The growing economic crisis — fueled by low prices for oil, the country’s main export; a drought that has crippled Venezuela’s ability to generate hydroelectric power; and a long decline in manufacturing and agricultural production — has turned into an intensely political one for President Nicolás Maduro. This month, he declared a state of emergency, his second this year, and ordered military exercises, citing foreign threats.
But the president looks increasingly encircled.
The economic situation of this country is collapse,” Pablo Parada, a law student, who was participating last week in a hunger strike in front of the O.A.S. office in Caracas. “There are people who go hungry now.”
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Van Rooyen and family living in 5-star luxury hotel Africa |
Hundreds of thousands of rands have been spent while Des van Rooyen's official home is readied.
The government has splashed out at least R500 000 on a luxury apartment for the controversial co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister, Des van Rooyen, and his family at a five-star boutique hotel in Pretoria.
This follows Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s warning in this year’s budget speech that the government planned to introduce stringent cost-cutting in all departments to allow additional spending on higher education and other national priorities. The measures would include national travel and accommodation.
The hotel, 131 on Herbert Baker, has a 180-degree view of Pretoria and borders on a nature reserve in the wealthy suburb of Groenkloof. “Enjoy spectacular sunsets over the city from the exclusive Ristorante Grissini and extravagant high teas are served on the front lawn daily,” its website gushes.
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Acrimonious Exit of Nene Hits Africa's Economy, @TheStarKenya Africa |
SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma toppled his highly respected Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene on Wednesday, last week, and replaced him with an apparent neophyte David Van Rooyen.
The response was real time. #Zumamustfall became the most trending hashtag in South Africa and rand assets got crushed as investors world-wide hit the eject [at any price] button.
The rand cratered to a record low 16.0543 per US dollar before paring losses to trade 1.9 per cent down at 15.7648 by 7.04pm in Johannesburg on Friday.
Helen Zille tweeted: “Nene’s firing is key to understanding how ANC [African National Congress] works. Don’t cross Zuma’s path even if it is SA’s interests, if you want to keep your job.”
Pierre Du Toit, a professor at the Universe of Stellenbosch told Bloomberg: “It’s a disaster. The decisions he is taking are those of a man who doesn’t understand that his own interests are tied to that of South Africa within a global political economy. He doesn’t understand the world we are living in.”
The markets are not interested in Zuma’s explanations, they are seeing a South African president who has gone rogue.
The first- and second-round effects are going to shudder South Africa Inc.
And the scariest part for South Africans is this: The presi- dent just doesn’t get it.
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Nigerian president says government "resolved" to keep naira steady Africa |
"We resolved to keep the Naira steady as, in the past, devaluation had done dreadful harm to the Nigerian economy," Buhari said in the text of a speech published by his office on Sunday.
"I supported the monetary authority's decision to ensure alignment between monetary policy and fiscal policy. We shall keep a close look on how the recent measures affect the naira and the economy," he said.
"But we cannot get away from the fact that a strong currency is predicated on a strong economy," he said
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Mozambique's Donors Demand Full Disclosure on Nation's Debt @Business Africa |
Donors are demanding that Mozambique makes full disclosure of the state of its finances before they can resume aid that was withdrawn after the government admitted to hiding more than $1.4 billion in debt.
The southern African nation may have missed a May 23 deadline for a state-owned company, Mozambique Asset Management, to make an interest payment on a $535 million loan. The potential default has raised concerns that the cash-strapped country won’t meet other obligations, including on a $727 million Eurobond issued in March.
“The suspension of disbursements follows what is perceived by partners as a serious breach of trust, poor governance and lack of fiscal transparency,” the so-called Group of 14 donors said in a letter with a raft of demands sent this month and obtained by Bloomberg.
In the letter, the donors ask Mozambican authorities to list all the country’s existing and planned debt, with details on what the loans were intended for, their terms and conditions and repayment schedules. The country must also reveal the shareholding structure of MAM and a second state-owned company, Proindicus, which was lent $622 million in 2013. Restore Confidence
Budget support funding to the country has been falling since 2013, Prime Minister Carlos Do Rosario said a speech to the nation after a Washington D.C. meeting with the International Monetary Fund last month. Aid was $297 million in 2015, down from $389 million a year earlier and $457 million in 2013.
The IMF, which unearthed the secret loans to MAM and Proindicus, has suspended $55 million in aid, the second tranche of a $110-million program for 2016. The World Bank has also temporarily halted another $276 million in budget support, according to London-based Standard Chartered Plc.
Yields on Mozambique’s Eurobond fell by 2 basis points to 17.12 percent by 2:08 p.m. in London, after reaching a record 17.13 percent on Thursday. The metical has depreciated 18 percent against the dollar this year, extending its 32 percent loss in 2015.
“Political repercussions are likely,” Victor Lopes, a senior economist for Africa at Standard Chartered, said in a note. “We see a rising risk of increased social discontent against the ruling Frelimo party, especially as inflation rises as a consequence of a weaker currency.”
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EABL, suppliers row could push beer prices up Kenyan Economy |
East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) is locked in a row with a section of its distributors over commissions, in a dispute that could see beer prices rise by nearly Sh20 a bottle.
The suppliers under the Beverage Distributors of Kenya (BDK) are pushing the beer maker to increase their commissions from the current four per cent to between eight and 12 per cent of the recommended retail price.
This sets the stage for another rise in beer prices following an average increase of Sh20 in December with the introduction of new taxes on a number of goods including water, cigarettes and cars.
The distributors currently earn a commission of Sh5.60 to supply a bottle of Tusker and Sh6.40 on Guinness.
This will increase to between Sh11.2 and Sh16.8 on Tusker and Sh12.80 and Sh19.20 on Guinness should EABL agree to the distributors’ demands.
“KBL (Kenya Breweries Ltd) is concerned by the attempts of select distributors and retailers who seek to control and raise consumer prices beyond the recommended retail price,” said EABL in a statement Sunday following a meeting held by BDK on Saturday.
“Artificial price inflation is not good for the Kenyan consumer and economy.’’
Treasury lifted the excise tax by 43 per cent to Sh100 per litre of beer, driving up retail prices by at least Sh20 per bottle.
The rise in excise duty designed to shore up government revenues, was the first in four years.
“Kenyan consumers are incredibly price sensitive so moving up by 20 shillings is a big deal,” Mr Charles Ireland, group CEO of EABL, said in an earlier interview.
This explains the brewer’s opposition to the distributors’ push given its implications on the firm’s profits and sales.
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EABL share price data here +10.622% in 2016 and at a 6 month High Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 2/- Closing Price: 302.00 Total Shares Issued: 790774356.00 Market Capitalization: 238,813,855,512 EPS: 11.31 PE: 26.702
Revenue 37.513921b vs. 34.657876b +8.241% Cost of sales [20.084503b] vs. [17.527170b] +14.591% Gross profit 17.429418b vs. 17.130706b +1.743% Selling and distribution costs [3.244707b] vs. [3.188071b] +1.776% Administrative expenses [5.094642b] vs. [4.397458b] +15.854% Other income/ [expenses] 191.841m vs. [447.624m] +142.858% Finance income 187.589m vs. 11.553m +1,523.725% Finance costs [1.547213b] vs. [2.193056b] -29.449% Profit before income tax 7.922286b vs. 6.916050b +15.549% Profit for the period from continued operations 5.484510b vs. 4.723614b +16.108% Profit /[loss] from discontinued operations 2.249428b vs. 0.101497b +2,116.251% Profit for the period 7.733938b vs. 4.622117b +67.325% EPS 9.13 vs. 5.23 +74.570% EPS (continuing operations) 6.28 vs. 5.37 +16.946% Net assets 43.116692b vs. 42.009009b +2.637%
Its a party Johnnie Walker #Nairobi @Diageo_News @NorfolkFairmont cc @Ckirubi Charles Ireland http://www.twitpic.com/dm2mm1
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@Barclays_Kenya reports Q1 EPS 2016 +2.564% Earnings here -26.10% 2016 Kenyan Economy |
Par Value: 2/- Closing Price: 10.05 Total Shares Issued: 5431536000.00 Market Capitalization: 54,586,936,800 EPS: 1.55 PE: 6.484
Q1 Loans and advances to customers (net) 152.442482b vs. 145.378553b +4.859% Q1 Customers’ deposits 168.932598b vs. 156.054174b +8.253% Q1 Total shareholders’ funds 42.315483b vs. 40.265422b +5.091% Q1 Total operating income 7.988473b vs. 7.370213b +8.389% Q1 Total operating expenses [4.936831b] vs. [4.249586b] +16.172% Q1 Profit before tax and exceptional items 3.042642b vs. 3.120627b -2.499% Q1 Profit after tax and exceptional items 2.181684b vs. 2.115557b +3.126% EPS 0.40 vs. 0.39 +2.564% Total NPL & advances 6.396395b vs. 4.407398b +45.129% Loan loss provision 3.504980b vs. 2.757730b +27.097%
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N.S.E Today |
Equity Turnover slumped to just 166.934m. The Nairobi All Share retreated 1.11 points to close at 144.43 which is 12 week Low. The Nairobi NSE20 Index eased 6.56 points to close at 3860.94. The Shilling was last trading at 100.895 not far off a 9 month High and it trades resilient given the 100 basis points of easing seen last week.
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N.S.E Equities - Commercial & Services |
Safaricom was the most actively traded share at the Securities Exchange in what was a very subdued session overall. Safaricom eased -0.292% to close at 17.05 and traded 2.567m shares. Safaricom is +5.72% in 2016 and a Rebound is now due.
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N.S.E Equities - Finance & Investment |
Barclays Kenya reported Q1 2016 Earnings where Q1 2016 [net] Loans and Advances clocked a +4.859% increase to 152.442b, Q1 Profit After Tax was +3.126%. Total NPL & advances rose +45.129% to 6.396395b and the Loan Loss Provision was +27.097%. Barclays Bank has been caught in the crosshairs of the Barclays PLC divestment, Barclays Bank firmed +0.5% to close at 10.10 on very light trading of just 27,700 shares. Barclays Kenya remains -25.73% in 2016. Standard Chartered closed unchanged at 207.00 but closed the session trading 215.00 +3.86% session Highs.There is very little Supply being shown and StanChart is +6.153% in 2016 and has plenty of scope to the Upside. COOP Bank which received permission at its AGM to explore market Entry into Ethiopia, shaved off -0.55% to close at 18.05 and traded 1.459m shares. Diamond Trust Bank was marked down 4.95% to close at 192.00 on light trading of just 2,000 shares.
NIC Bank was the most actively traded Banking share today and firmed +0.65% to close at 38.25 and traded 26.369m. NIC Bank is -11.5% in 2016 and trades on a Trailing P/E Ratio of 5.41
National Bank rallied +7.619% to close at a 2 month High of 11.30. National Bank remains -28.25% Year to date but has rebounded +21.5% this month.
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N.S.E Equities - Industrial & Allied |
EABL which had surged +10.622% Year To Date through this morning retreated -3.311% off a 6 month Closing High to close at 292.00 and traded 75,500 shares. The Catalyst for the Down-draft was a report in the Business Daily which spoke to EABL being ''locked in a row with a section of its distributors over commissions' '. The Argument could see Beer Prices rise by up to 20/= a bottle as per Business Daily.
“Kenyan consumers are incredibly price sensitive so moving up by 20 shillings is a big deal,” Mr Charles Ireland, group CEO of EABL, said in an earlier interview.
KenGen firmed +2.29% to close at 6.70 and traded 108,400 shares. The Rights traded at 5cents 18,200x. There are surely many International Accounts who will be looking at this Liquidity Event as an outstanding entry Point.
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