The Bane of success

you never know about the downside of succes especially if it comes abruptly until you experience it. but what we are seeing in the NSE is exactly that. after the kengen IPO these guys have been so bombarded that they are failing to do just about every small thing that is expected of them. people are posting their own pricelists hours before they do and taking the credit, the website has not been updated with news and information for heaven knows how long and if you look at those of the brokers and investment banks you are left speechless. In fact the latter have been forced to recruit complete greenhorns and when you go to them, they may not even know how to extract your statements. its a sorry state. it reminds one of the days of congestion at safaricom after they execeeded their goals by over 1000% and recieved more subscribers than they had ever imagined. problem is the entry into the brokerage thing is prohibitive and elitist. so these guys are as safe as they can imagine.

Just wondering how the investors will react to the eveready IPO. will it really be oversubscribed? the thing that causes that is institutional investors. are there any of those who want to do the eveready business? if left entirely to retailers, then we may not see the repeat of kengen or scangroup. however scangroup was a very bad experience. tying money for so long only for you to be awarded 400 shares! worth 4000 bob! for speculators its ok but for the investors, Kenya RE and Mumias may be better bets.

banks great profits this year keep trickling in. the latest being KCB up 78%. KCB is a true testimony that one must not be judged on their past misdeeds. americans should know this. just the other day KCB was a no no. well now other things can be said. And even though i hate it, it appears that the sensational and screaming headlines of the east african standard is finaly paying dividends. the group has showed significant growth and profitability. on top of the bonus issue, they will be migrating to the main segment of trade early next year. at 68 bob a share, i suppose this would be one of the beauties of the election year. after all the only threat they have right now is 'muchuki' who may loose his fangs after elections next year. when it comes to news and analysis , KTN is head and shoulders above the rest. but i think the group should do something about their newspaper. it may just become a tabloid.

Meanwhile two merali firms are racing for skies and no one is saying why. a few people are throwing in better management, better profits and even the eveready IPO. most fund managers purposefully avoid merali, well why now. sameer has been having the hieghest turnover for 3 consecutive days each at improved prices. one investment advisor in a blog entry has suggested that its because of the surge in the number of tyres on our roads that has caused a dippinng share to turn around and sky rocket in one week!

i was comparing the prices of stocks between september and yesterday and the least i can say is that its nostaligic! EAC was 90 bob, icdc was 200 , sasini was 40, BBK 300 etc. just september. hindsight!

odegle tip of the day -- look before you leap, but for quick gains just leap. risk free life is a recipe for failure.