Dialectic Africa Analyst

Dear Africa interested professionals,                                                             Allow me to take you on a quick and concise trip to East Africa and the banking industry. Barclays Kenya offers a full spectrum of solutions to its customers through its four business units: Retail, Corporate, Treasury & Card Services . The key strategic drivers of the company's current performance and into the future are: 1. Expanded existing business through renewed SME focus including a new hire to spearhead the bank's renewed focus and optimism about the SME space in Kenya. The bank has also increased fixed income trading with 18% of its total assets being committed to fixed income trading with none held to maturity as at September 2015 (all available for sale.)  Bond yields are averaging 16% in Kenya with a relatively stable exchange rate unlike 11% in Nigeria with an exchange rate fully insulated from market forces.     2. Accelerated opening of new revenue s

Dear Viewers:                        Long time!  The current prices of popularly traded stocks on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2016 will appear alien to all except the regular.  What can I say?  The low price of some stocks has not been seen ever in some cases and this got me writing again on this blog for the first time in almost 5 months .  Here are two of the companies that I was taken aback by their stock prices  moving in opposite directions for varied reasons.  1. Forte Oil trading at N342.00 per share.   This is pretty much double what the stock was trading at about a year ago. The company's pre-tax income rose by 17% from FY 2014 - 2015 and its share price has pretty much doubled over the past twelve months after rising 133% from December 31st 2013 - 2014.  This movement is definitely not market driven given that the Nigerian market index has been on a downward spiral in 2015 and this has continued into 2016 unabated with the market down almost 15%.  So is the pric