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Macro Thoughts

Home Thoughts

Its so comforting to have the Older Girls at home. They have both
spent their first year at University and without doubt are more
mature. Hannah who adores her older Sisters is of course trailing them
everywhere. They, of course, do ask some difficult questions like

''Dad Do You have a Plan if things go pear-shaped?''

And I said ''Look Darling, it won't.''

A Lot of Folks are out of town and its been a joy speeding through this City

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

It has become a global ritual: you wake up each morning and grab your
phone to catch up on the latest episode of The Trump Show, the
addictive reality TV series. Which character has been humiliated,
investigated or sacked? This has been the most distracting political
year of my lifetime, and potentially the most dangerous. It’s not only
Trump’s fault. After all, we are the viewers.

People in reality TV admire Trump as an astute professional. In 2015,
after US TV audiences began to fall, he jumped to politics and put on
a new show. This is not a metaphor: he still thinks like a reality
performer. Reality TV perches between fiction and non-fiction, which
is the spot where Trump feels happiest. Reality shows have scripted
plots or formats, but partially real characters. Trump, several of
whose companies have been bankrupted, played a successful businessman
on TV, and so viewers could imagine him playing one in the White
House.

Season one of Trump’s political show was the presidential campaign. It
used the standard industry format known as “reality competition”
(kicking the other contestants off the island), only with bigger
stakes (the presidency) and A-list celebrities (who rarely consent to
appear on reality TV).

In season two, Trump is improvising a new format. It largely dispenses
with boring political characters, especially now that Congress
probably won’t pass any major bills. Instead, the cast consists of
Trump’s relatives (who can’t be kicked out of Trumpworld) and his
posse (who can). The relatives were born into the show so they
understand Trump has to be the star, but some posse members fail to
grasp what genre they’re appearing in. John Kelly, for instance,
imagines he is Trump’s chief of staff, whereas in fact he’s The Trump
Show’s new Marine-general character.

But they are all dispensable characters. The ideal star of a reality
series is an uninhibited narcissist who gradually reveals the inner
reaches of his personality. As the reality TV producer Troy DeVolld
explained in 2013: “That’s when celebrity casting works for me — when
you actually get to see who somebody is, beneath who you thought they
were when they came into it.”

The Trump Show is broadcast non-stop on both social media and TV, so
its pace is unprecedented. Judged as entertainment, it’s vastly
superior to the Barack Obama series. Whereas all other TV shows are
now niche, this one appeals to all demographics. When Trump
defenestrated his latest communications chief, I heard a nine-year-old
excitedly shout: “Scaramucci’s fired!”

But they tend to misunderstand the conventions of the genre, and
accuse Trump of lying when in fact he’s performing in a show. They
also complain he doesn’t have a concentration span. Of course he
doesn’t: in reality TV, if you spend a few minutes developing
complexity, the audience switches off.

The broader problem is that we viewers — the smartphone generation
raised in peacetime — have no concentration spans either. Trump is the
fitting president for our era. No wonder that another merchant of
distraction, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, thinks he can be president
next.

Some liberals worry that Trump is distracting us in order to implement
some master plan, such as bringing fascism to America. He isn’t. Trump
doesn’t care about policy, though some people in Trumpworld do. He’s a
lowbrow entertainer, so he produces lowbrow entertainment.

Euro 1.1731
Dollar Index 93.67
Japan Yen 109.94
Swiss Franc 0.9663
Pound 1.2975
Aussie 0.7882
India Rupee 63.945
South Korea Won 1142.06
Brazil Real 3.1556
Egypt Pound 17.7750
South Africa Rand 13.4604

Emerging Markets

Frontier Markets

"My business is shut. I've lost clients. The economy is on its knees," he said.

It is 7am and Jane Atiato, aged 74, is standing in the middle of a
muddy field dressed in a purple bonnet and what looks like her best
church outfit. The occasion? Her sixth time to vote in a presidential
election since Kenya returned to multi-party democracy in 1992.

Whenever they are given the chance to participate, Kenyans in
particular, and Africans in general, take elections in deadly earnest.
Stories of people walking for miles to polling stations or standing in
line for hours are clichés because they are true. In this election,
Kenyans are deciding between two presidential candidates whose elite
families have dominated post-independence politics for half a century
— not much of a choice. Yet turnout could nudge 80 per cent. Asked if
they intended to vote on Tuesday, Kenyans answered with variants on
the following: “I must vote. It is both my duty and my right.”

African elections can be deeply moving. People treat democracy with a
reverence that has long faded in the west. But there is a gap between
people’s aspirations and the poor excuse for democracy that is too
often dished up. People, it is said, get the government they deserve.
In Africa, nothing could be further from the truth. Leaders, who are
mostly in it for themselves, in no way deserve their electorates.

Africa’s leaders may not be ready for democracy. But its people certainly are.

Zambian President Edgar Lungu and jailed opposition leader Hakainde
Hichilema have agreed to hold talks to resolve their political
differences, a Commonwealth official said.

The discussions will be facilitated by the office of the Commonwealth,
the intergovernmental organization’s secretary-general, Patricia
Scotland, told reporters Wednesday in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.

Hichilema has been in prison for over 100 days on treason charges, and
Lungu invoked emergency measures last month after a fire at the
southern African country’s biggest market. The opposition leader has
refused to accept Lungu as the winner of last year’s elections, which
he claims were rigged.

The vote “can hardly be expected to be a ‘shocker’ for any market
participant,” currency strategist Ulrich Leuchtmann wrote in a note to
clients. Going forward, any policy mistakes “would have to be big to
have any market impact – as everybody who currently holds long-ZAR
positions should be prepared for some volatile political news flow,”
he wrote.

Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg +34.73% 2017
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GGSECI:IND

Raila Odinga, Kenya’s opposition leader, has alleged that hackers
infiltrated the electoral commission’s computer system to manipulate a
presidential election after provisional results showed Uhuru Kenyatta
on course for victory.

Mr Kenyatta, the incumbent, had secured 54.3 per cent of the vote
after results from about 96 per cent of polling stations had been
declared. Mr Odinga was on 44.8 per cent.

Mr Odinga, making his fourth bid for Kenya’s presidency, declared “an
attack on democracy”, adding that his party’s internal results were
“completely different” to the official tally.

“Some persons conspired and executed a scheme to deny Kenyans their
democratic right to elect their leaders,” said Mr Odinga. “From the
information in our possession, some person’s gained entry into the
IEBC [electoral board] election management database and assumed the
role of our collective sovereign.”

Ezra Chiloba, the commission’s chief executive officer, rejected Mr
Odinga’s claim. “There was no external interference in the management
system before, during or after the election,” he said on Wednesday
evening. “Based on our own study we’re comfortable where we are.”

“Kenyatta’s provisional win will soothe those investors who feared a
leftist shift in economic policy,” Hasnain Malik, Exotix Capital’s
global head of equities research, said in an emailed note. “But the
most important issues are ahead of us: Does Odinga concede peacefully?
His initial rhetoric suggests there is a risk he does not.”

“There is a tsunami of money that would flood into Kenya if this
election can be pulled off well,” said Aly Khan Satchu, an investment
expert in Nairobi.

Euphoria over a President Uhuru Kenyatta win, even if the election
results are preliminary, boosted the nation’s stocks by the most in
Africa and sent Kenya’s dollar bonds higher.
The FTSE NSE Kenya 25 Index of stocks advanced as much as 2.7 percent
to the highest level in two years. The yield on the nation’s Eurobonds
due 2024 fell the most since March and the shilling was little
changed.
With votes from more than 90 percent of polling stations counted,
Kenyatta has so far secured 54.4 percent of the votes, while his main
rival, Raila Odinga, has 44.7 percent, according to the Independent
Electoral & Boundaries Commission’s website. The opposition rejected
the results, with Odinga insisting the system used to count votes had
been hacked.
“The markets are seeing this accusation of massive hacking as a red
herring,” said Aly-Khan Satchu, who runs Nairobi-based Rich
Management, an adviser to companies and wealthy individuals. “There is
no smoking gun and hence the positive reaction. President Kenyatta and
Kenya’s free market credentials are burnished by what was a very
well-conducted election and I expect a serious upwards rerating at the
stock exchange. The shilling will remain robust.”
A Kenyatta win would soothe investors who fear a shift to more leftist
economic policies under Odinga, Exotix Capital said in a note to
clients. Odinga has said he’ll stamp out corruption in the world’s
biggest exporter of black tea, while Kenyatta pledged to create 1.3
million jobs a year. Kenya is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s five largest
economies and a regional hub for companies such as Google Inc. and
Coca-Cola Co.
Markets shouldn’t write off the chances of unrest in the coming days,
according to Capital Economics Ltd. Accusations of fraud raise the
risk of violence and riots, similar to when Odinga lost to then
President Mwai Kibaki in 2007 and disputed the results.
“While the opposition leader has appealed for calm, he has also
explicitly denied responsibility for any actions undertaken by his
supporters,” John Ashbourne, an Africa economist at Capital Economics,
said in a note to clients.
If riots start, Kenya’s tourism and agricultural exports would suffer,
knocking about 3 percentage points off economic growth in the third
quarter, he said.
The shilling traded at 103.98 per dollar and the yield on the dollar
bonds declined 18 basis points to 6.3 percent as of 7:33 p.m. in
London. Kenyan stocks ended the trading day 1.4 percent higher.

Odinga posted 50 pages of computer logs online to support his hacking
claims, but they were "inconclusive", according to Matt Bernhard, who
studies computer security in election systems at the University of
Michigan.

Some time stamps appeared out of order and it was hard to evaluate the
veracity of screenshots without access to a server, he said.

"NO RAILA, NO PEACE!"

Odinga urged his supporters to remain calm but added: "I don't control
the people". His deputy Kalonzo Musyoka said the opposition might call
for unspecified "action" later.

It took the StarTimes satellite TV salesman about 30 minutes to
install a pipeline for Chinese propaganda into Francis Gitonga’s
squat, cinder-block home here in southern Kenya, near Africa’s Great
Rift Valley.

First, he climbed onto Gitonga’s roof, drilled a satellite dish onto
the chimney, and dangled some wires through the door frame. He plugged
it all into a StarTimes set-top box, and turned it on.

Gitonga, 43, flipped through the channels, and Chinese programs filled
the screen: an old kung fu movie, a Chinese news broadcast, a Chinese
documentary about Japan’s wartime atrocities, most dubbed into
English.

In Kenya, memories of election horrors set an ominous tone for Tuesday's vote »

Gitonga was elated. His new digital TV package gave him better
reception than he’d once thought possible in Kajiado, a small town on
the savannah where Masai tribesmen wander past rickety storefronts and
goats cluster in the shade.

“I didn't know about China before,” he said. “I can say it's good.
They have changed this country in a big way, very fast.”

Although StarTimes — a privately owned, Beijing-based media and
telecommunications firm — is virtually unknown in the West, it has
been sweeping across Africa since 2002, overhauling the continent’s
broadcast infrastructure and beaming Chinese content into millions of
homes. It has subsidiaries in 30 African countries, including such
war-torn states as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central
African Republic.

"Our aim is to enable every African household to afford digital TV,
watch good digital TV and enjoy the digital life,” StarTimes Vice
Chairman Guo Ziqi told China’s official New China News Agency in
December.

But there’s a catch. StarTimes has substantial backing from the
Chinese state — and an explicit political mandate.

China’s relationship with Africa — for decades defined by
resource-for-infrastructure deals — is evolving, as Africa becomes
wealthier and China’s foreign policy objectives grow more ambitious.

Beijing has invested billions of dollars into “soft power” campaigns
aimed at convincing the world that China is a cultural and political
success story. Yet beyond China’s borders, its heavily censored state
media broadcasts go mostly unwatched; its newspapers go unread; and
outsiders often continue to associate China with pollution, opacity
and repression.

StarTimes signals a change in tack, one that highlights the depth and
complexity of Beijing’s efforts to win hearts and minds — with much of
that effort now being directed at Africa, one of the world’s great
emerging media markets.

As a digital infrastructure provider, StarTimes is helping African
states transition from analog television — a technology akin to FM
radio, rife with snow, static and dropped signals — to digital, which
ensures high-quality image and sound. As a pay-TV company, it is
stacking its networks with pro-China broadcasts.

As both, it is materially improving the lives of countless Africans,
then making China’s role in those improvements impossible to ignore.

“There’s a huge ideological element” to StarTimes’ African operations,
said Dani Madrid-Morales, a doctoral fellow at the City University of
Hong Kong who has researched the company. “It’s a huge effort to get
Africans to understand China. Even the selection of TV shows is very
carefully done. It’s very specific shows that showcase an urban China,
a growing China, a noncontroversial view of China.”

Pang Xinxing, StarTimes’ chief executive, who could not be reached for
comment, has told Chinese state media that he expanded to Africa to
counter “exaggerated and biased reports” about China in the Western
media.

“There’s a mindfulness among China’s leadership that China doesn’t get
fair treatment overseas, and something needs to be done about it,”
Madrid-Morales said.

StarTimes established its Kenyan subsidiary in 2012; now, it has 1.4
million subscribers, accounting for nearly half of Kenya’s pay-TV
subscriptions. Its cheapest package, called “Novo,” costs about $4 per
month. Novo features a mix of Kenyan and Chinese channels, including
several belonging to the Chinese state-run broadcaster, the China
Global Television Network, or CGTN.

Access to other international channels, such as Al Jazeera, France 24
and BBC — which are more inclined to portray China in a negative light
— costs more than most Kenyans can afford.

In December 2016, StarTimes launched a “pilot program” in Kajiado “as
part of its long-term agenda” to bring digital television to rural
Kenyans, according to the state-run China Daily. The company gave free
StarTimes set-top boxes and subscriptions to 120 households. Sun
Zhijun, a Chinese vice minister overseeing propaganda and media
censorship, traveled to Kajiado for the inaugural celebration.

By January, StarTimes was everywhere in town — bright orange StarTimes
advertisements glowed on schoolhouse walls, and StarTimes satellite
dishes sprouted like carnations from corrugated sheet-metal roofs.

The Kajiado project “is being subsidized by the Chinese government,”
Mark Lisboa, StarTimes Kenya’s vice president of marketing,
acknowledged, without giving an amount.

The company “embarked on a massive sales drive” following Kenya’s
switch to digital TV infrastructure in 2014, he said; it now employs
1,100 people, most of them Kenyan. He added that StarTimes will begin
building an Africa headquarters, a dubbing center and production
facilities within the year.

China says it built a railway in Africa out of altruism, but it's more
strategic than that »

“This is just the beginning, I’ll put it that way,” he said.

China’s footprint across Kenya spreads far beyond access to the
airwaves. As in the rest of Africa, China has been investing heavily
in infrastructure. But as China’s impact deepens, Kenyans have often
reacted with suspicion. They blame China for stealing local jobs. They
fear that China — Kenya’s largest creditor — is saddling the country
with unmanageable debt, and that Chinese infrastructure projects are
endangering the country’s pristine national parks, some of the world’s
most biodiverse.

In late May, a Kenyan delegation signed a $2-billion deal with a
Chinese firm for a 1,050-megawatt coal-fired power plant about 13
miles north of Lamu Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the
oldest Swahili settlement in East Africa. Critics say the project
could pollute the air, damage fishing grounds and push hundreds of
residents off their land. Locals were outraged that the Chinese
company, China Power Global, would import 40% of workers on the
project from China.

Lamu residents have staged silent protests, marching through the town
bearing anti-coal placards, and though the Kenya National Environment
Management Authority signed off on the project last year, the plant’s
fate remains undecided.

To get a sense of what’s at stake for China in Kenya, visit Nairobi
National Park, a pristine nature preserve in the capital city’s
shadow, where zebras graze against a backdrop of skyscrapers.

China provided most of the funding, in loans and investment, for a
$3.8-billion railway joining Nairobi and the Kenyan port city Mombasa,
380 miles away — part of which will cut through the park. The line
opened in June; its high concrete pillars rise like a mirage from the
dry, yellow savannah.

The new train will travel at an average of 74 mph, cutting
transportation time between the two cities from about 10 hours to
five; it will transport 22 million tons of cargo per year. Ultimately,
it could anchor a Chinese-backed rail network stretching into South
Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, where transportation networks are
now rudimentary, consisting mainly of dilapidated roads and remote
airstrips. Improved access to ports could improve trade and open
markets.

But critics in Kenya say the railway is overpriced, costing a fifth of
the national budget, and could put Kenya in debt for generations — 90%
of the project was funded through loans from the Export-Import Bank of
China, often known simply as China ExIm Bank.

Some of the deliberations with government officials over the project
happened behind closed doors, drawing accusations of corruption —
though no one has offered much beyond suspicion.

“In my opinion, the [rail] project is one of the biggest scandals ever
witnessed in Kenya,” Kenyan politician Joshua Odongo Onono wrote in a
commentary last year. “May God have mercy on us.”

Environmentalists have raised a loud alarm about the rail line’s
effect on wildlife. The flurry of initial construction is thought to
have led to the deaths of 10 elephants. Several lions escaped from the
park — one of which died — and some have blamed that, too, on the
construction activity, though that’s less clear.

Protesters gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi, chanting,
“ExIm China, respect our laws!”

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Paula Kahumbu, the Nairobi-based CEO of the
conservationist organization WildlifeDirect. “We’re concerned that if
they can get away with this in the capital city, God knows what could
happen elsewhere.”

The controversies were barely reported by Chinese news outlets in Kenya.

Those reports have tended to focus on the rail line’s efficiency,
economic benefits and ambition. “The line is expected to speed up the
transformation of the Eastern African region as a whole,” reported
CGTN in September.

Kevin Otiende, a former employee in CGTN’s Nairobi bureau, said that
its Kenyan journalists had little say over what ultimately went on
air. “I felt personally, there was no freedom of expression,” he said.
“Everything had to be nice. And anything that was not perceived to be
correct was immediately killed.”

Chinese business advocates paint Beijing’s media investments as a
win-win for Chinese investors and African consumers — and an important
prerequisite to China’s ongoing ambitions on the continent.

Huang Hongxiang, the Nairobi-based founder of China House Kenya, which
provides consulting services to Chinese companies in the country, said
that if China does not take steps to improve its image in Africa,
“there will be conflicts sooner or later resulting from
misunderstandings.”

“Why would China want to do the railway? Of course it's because it's
beneficial to China’s economy and Chinese companies, and to
China-Africa relations,” he said. “Between China and Africa you have a
lot of material exchange — the railway, and so on. But
people-to-people exchange really isn't enough.”

How much impact China is achieving through its media investments
remains unclear. Experts questioned whether Kenya’s StarTimes
subscribers, while benefiting from StarTimes’ signal quality, were
actually watching Chinese shows.

Linus Kaikai, chairman of the Kenya Editors Guild and a manager at the
Nairobi-based National Media Group, said Kenyan audiences have been
shifting away from foreign content for years, as local shows grow more
popular. To most Kenyans, he added, Chinese culture carries little
cachet.

“Kenyans have been separating and placing — if I can put it this way —
a Chinese wall between infrastructure and culture,” he said. “Kenyans
don’t see [China] as a model in the space of democratic or political
processes. But they see it as a very, very good model when it comes to
economic growth.”

David Mwangi, owner of a small shop in Kajiado, said he has learned to
appreciate Chinese news reports. “BBC is shallow. But [CGTN] has more,
a lot of African stuff,” he said. “I thought China was a small
country, but now I know it's a big country with a lot of technology
and infrastructure.

“China is improving a lot,” he continued, glancing at his television.
He paused, briefly.

“China has conquered Kenya,” he said.

Nairobi All Share Bloomberg +20.40% 2017
http://www.BLOOMBERG.COM/quote/NSEASI:IND

160.54 +1.71 +1.08%

Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg +20.84% 2017
http://j.mp/ajuMHJ

3,850.13 +31.86 +0.83%

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

The synchronised Press Conference where the AU's Thabo Mbeki, The
Commonwealth's John Mahama, The EU and John Kerry all affirmed the
integrity of the Election essentially means that any strategy of
tension is punctured and President Kenyatta will be officially
inaugurated in very short order.
“The markets are seeing this accusation of massive hacking as a red
herring,” said Aly-Khan Satchu, who runs Nairobi-based Rich Management
[I told Bloomberg Quint]
“There is no smoking gun and hence the positive reaction. President
Kenyatta and Kenya’s free market credentials are burnished by what was
a very well-conducted election and I expect a serious upwards rerating
at the stock exchange. The shilling will remain robust.”
A Kenyatta win would soothe investors who fear a shift to more leftist
economic policies under Odinga, Exotix Capital said in a note to
clients.
I had told the Wall Street Journal  “From an economic perspective,
this is a pivot election...it could produce a very bifurcated
outcome.”
“There is a tsunami of money that would flood into Kenya if this
election can be pulled off well” I told the Wall Street Journal.
The shilling traded at 103.895 per dollar last and the yield on the
dollar bonds declined a a massive 18 basis points to 6.3 percent
yesterday.
The Nairobi All Share ramped +1.37% higher [making that a +2.46% rally
over 2 sessions] to close at a 26 month high.
The Nairobi NSE20 Index rallied +53.16 points and +1.38% to close at
3903.29 a 15 month high.
Equity Turnover clocked 207.241m which is light trading.

Safaricom rallied +2.105% to regain an all time high of 24.25
previously reached 27th through 31st July. Safaricom has short term
upside to 28.00. The E-Commerce Platform is set to be a Big
Game-Changer.

Barclays Bank rallied +3.517% to close at 10.30 and above 10.00 for
the first time this Year. Barclays Bank has served up a +24.175% Total
Return in 2017.
Standard Chartered rallied +2.25% to close at 227.00.
Housing Finance rallied +6.48% to close at 11.50. Housing Finance
remains -17.85% in 2017.

KenGen rallied +4.67% to close at 8.95 which matches a 2017 closing
high from June this Year. KenGen is now +54.31% in 2017 and has been
on a tear since the Rights Issue and the arrival of PIC SA on the
register. There is more to go.
KPLC surged +6.145% to close at 9.50 which is a 2017 high. KPLC is
+16.56% in 2017 and on a PE of less than 3 has headroom.

EABL firmed 2 shillings to close at 267.00 and traded 50,600 shares.
--