The big news internationally on Wednesday was the decision by Theresa May to call a snap General Election in the United Kingdom for June 8.
The Conservative Party has a 21 point lead in the polls and the Prime Minister is seeking to parlay that lead into a big majority. I think the PM will win this by a mile like Shergar won the Epsom Derby. Sterling found an off-ramp on Tuesday and surged (its still got a lot further to go) and the shorts got burned. I have seen a bullish Sterling for a while now and the Naysayers are toast now.
Sterling jumped to 132.72 and my target is 140 plus.
Here at home, it was reported that Kenya Gross Domestic Product expanded at 5.8 per cent through 2016.
The International Monetary Fund is forecasting a 5.3 per cent GDP expansion this year, which all of us would take with both hands given the drought and it being an election year.
The Nairobi All Share firmed 0.31 points to close at 133.81.
The NSE20 rallied +27.89 points to close at 3129.76.
Equity turnover was brisk at 718.551million.
Sasini Tea and Coffee rallied +6.14 per cent to close at 26.00 and traded 10,100 shares. Sasini Tea is +35.41 per cent through 2017.
Safaricom was the most actively traded share at the exchange on Wednesday and firmed +0.26 per cent to close at 19.20 with 12.731 million shares worth Sh244.435million changing hands. Safaricom is +19.62 per cent since closing at a 2017 low in early March.
Stanbic Bank saw easy volume action and closed unchanged at 58.00 and traded 2.975 million shares (0.75 per cent) of its issued shares worth 172.592 million. StanBic trades on a PE of 5.188 and looks to have room to the upside once this supply is cleared.
Equity Bank closed unchanged at 32.75 and traded 1.055million shares.
Barclays Bank rallied +3.26 per cent to close at 7.90 and traded 645,100 shares. The Barclays bank Gold ETF could not have been better timed.
EABL firmed +0.418 per cent to close at 240.00 and traded 396,900 shares. The Financial Times carried a story headlined ''Multinational brewers look to tap Africa’s $13billion (about Sh1.344 trillion) beer market'' and this will further juice the same price recovery.
KenolKobil closed unchanged at 12.60 on good volume action of 5.154million shares worth Sh64.952 million. KenolKobil trades on a trailing PE of 7.683 and looks inexpensive.
BAT traded 37,000 shares all at 850.00, +0.12 per cent.
Aly-Khan is a financial analyst