Kalu Aja Profile picture
Oct 11, 2021 16 tweets 7 min read Read on X
1. An Apple orchard in a small town

Lots of Apples.
2. Lots of Apples.....so many that it falls to the ground and wastes

Excess supply in THIS town
3. Supply is so much you are allowed to pick Apples for free..and take home.

In this particular orchard, the exchange rate or trade deficit is immaterial.

You can't sell an apple, it's excess supply.
4. However drive a few miles to the nearest town and Apples are being sold.
The price of Apples here are based on supply from orchards.

More supply, price falls
Less supply, price rises

The trade deficit or $ to ¥ or National debt is immaterial. All that matters is supply
5. Same for these tomatoes

They are everywhere.

If dollar $1 is N1 it does not change the price per basket of tomatoes..IN THIS FIELD
6. Yet a 40kg basket of tomatoes sells for about N31k online. Why?

There is no value chain investment

1. No post harvest processing
2. No storage
3. Poor logistics

That N30k is the opportunity cost of having poor local infrastructure, not the cost of the basket.
One thing you notice is the infrastructure around farms in the abroad, how the produce is aggregated,STORED and processed.

This ensures there are inputs for processing post harvest

In effect, supply after the unnaturally high supply during harvest.
The FGN has about 33 Silos of about 33,000 to 100,000 tonnes. So let's assume 3.3m total capacity, or even 5m

Nigeria is the largest producer of maize in Africa about 10m tonnes a year.

You can see the excess harvest if not consumed or processed, is likely to waste.
You see corn during corn season in 🇳🇬 and prices fall.

After harvest, prices go right back up, not because exchange rate changed or inflation but demand stayed constant while supply fell.

To beat food inflation, you artificially "extend" harvest by processing & storage
In essence, you take tomatoes from this field, store, process, brand, market and distribute.

Thus tomato "harvest" prices stay longer than just harvests periods.
This is what Dangote and others are seeking to accomplish with Dangote Processing Plants.

But infrastructure is so weak that Dangote Tomato struggles to get raw tomatoes, according to Bloomberg.
What Nigeria needs is smaller processing plants in clusters of harvest, maybe in LGAs that are predominately rural.

The US value chain has been processed as key. Processing and Storing
Take cassava.

Go from small scale manual processing to medium scale processing.

These containers process cassava from tuber to flour or paste.

Remember, the goal is to extend the harvest prices and keep supply up.
Think of this.

Nigeria is the worlds largest producer of cassava, yet gari is expensive

Thailand produces less cassava than Nigeria but gets 80% value-added trade-in products.
In summary, move up the value chain.

Prioritise, Storage and processing.

Then harvest prices stay longer.

Even if they are imported, it's a one time CAPEX, but it's payback is lower food inflation.
Dangote tomato link

tomatonews.com/en/nigeria-dan…

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More from @FinPlanKaluAja1

Jun 22
Two points on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz

1. Crude oil accounts for about 85% of Iran's government revenue. Iran exports approximately 90% of its oil via the Strait of Hormuz

2. China is the largest purchaser of Iranian oil. Closing the Strait of Hormuz means China gets less oil than it needs from Iran; thus, China will go elsewhere, possibly to Russia. Not smart to lose a key export market to a swing exporter

Closing the Strait of Hormuz to 90% of your oil exports is like resigning from your high-paying job so you don't pay alimony to your ex-wifeImage
Image
Instead of typing one liners, do some research. You are seriously comparing the volume an oil tanker can carry with the volume a train can carry?

I asked Grok

“Approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports are transported via sea. Iran produces around 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, with about 2.6 million bpd exported. Of these exports, roughly 2.34 million bpd are shipped through maritime routes, primarily via the Strait of Hormuz from Persian Gulf terminals like Kharg Island. The remaining 10% (around 260,000 bpd) can potentially be exported via the Goreh-Jask pipeline to the Jask terminal on the Gulf of Oman, though actual usage of this route has been minimal, dropping to less than 70,000 bpd by September 2024 and ceasing thereafter. Non-maritime exports, such as via rail or land routes, are negligible for oil due to infrastructure limitations”
Slow down, do your research, then respond

You can't compare a ship carrying oil to a train carrying oil

“A standard oil tanker, specifically a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), can carry about 2 million barrels of oil (approximately 280,000 metric tons). Other common tanker types, like Aframax or Suezmax, hold 500,000 to 1 million barrels (70,000–140,000 metric tons). Tanker sizes vary, but VLCCs are widely used for long-haul maritime oil exports, such as from Iran to China.

In contrast, a standard freight train configured for oil transport, using tank cars, can carry significantly less. A typical oil train in regions like North America or Eurasia has about 70–100 tank cars, each with a capacity of 700 barrels (100,000 liters). In the China-Iran rail corridor, trains may have fewer cars (e.g., 40–70) due to infrastructure constraints like rail gauge differences or locomotive power, translating to roughly 28,000–70,000 barrels per train.”
Read 4 tweets
Apr 19
A Financial plan is a process

You go from A, to B then C

So whats Lets review the steps
1. Have a Plan

First and foremost, it's important to define your purpose for investing or delaying consumption.

Understanding the “why” behind your decisions informs the “how” you should proceed.

For example, if you're investing or postponing consumption today in order to spend during retirement in 20 years, your investment strategy will differ significantly from if you're saving to consume next year.

Being clear about your goals will help you create an effective investment strategy
2. Now that you have a plan, the first step is to build an Emergency Fund.

An Emergency Fund is a savings account where you set aside three to six months' worth of essential expenses, such as food and rent.

The process is straightforward:

1. List all your expenses and categorize them as “essential” or “non-essential.”
2. Determine the monthly cost of the non-essential items.
3. Save this amount in your emergency fund; it should be kept in cash or near-cash.

Why is this important?

If you invest without an emergency fund and an unexpected situation arises, such as a job loss or a damaged car, you may be forced to sell your investments to cover those expenses.

An emergency fund acts as your safety net.
Read 7 tweets
Apr 9
Let's compare assets during these turbulent times.

I have picked five asset classes:

Gold, represented by GLD ETF
US Stocks, represented by VTI
US Property, represented by VNQ
Digital Assets, represented by Bitcoin BTC
US Bonds, represented by UCITS

Let's track performance for one week, one month, a Year, and Five years.
What if I bought 5 years ago?

One word, Bitcoin. It's not even close; BTC killed the competition, went to the moon and back.

It's risk on, so cash rotated from bonds to stocks and, curiously, gold.

Property posted anemic returns. Image
About a year ago?

Markets grew slightly nervous, reducing risk-taking.

Investors shifted from high-risk BTC and stocks to gold and bonds. Gold led, followed by Bitcoin.

Stocks and property lagged. Image
Read 7 tweets
Mar 17
The US Markets are on a diet.

What makes the GDP rise or fall?
.
It's a combination of spending and net exports

1. Consumptuin rises, GDP rises
2. Investment rises, GDP rises
3. Government Spending rises, GDP rises
4. More Exports than Imports, GDP RisesImage
A recession, two negative quarters, happens when consumption or investment falls.

Take the US, for example. Personal consumption (buying cars, stoves, healthcare, etc.) is about 70% of the US GDP. If there is economic uncertainty or inflation, households stop spending, which causes a fall in consumption that fuels a recession.

The US economy shrank by 0.9% between April and June 2022, meaning a recession, because the earlier quarter was also negative. The Biden team denied there was a recession. Sec Yellen said "growth is slowing"
,Image
Thus, from April 2022, the US started spending $1t in debt every quarter to compensate for the fall in private consumption.

If you remove the government spending that created most government jobs, the US economy will not be in a recession but a depression.

What Donald Trump is doing is taking out the artificial. Debt-fueled growth from the marketsImage
Read 5 tweets
Feb 26
Let's review the recently published Q4 GDP numbers for Nigeria.

In summary, the headline figures look good

Quarter on Quarter, GDP growth posted 3.84%
Year on Year, GDP growth posted 3.40%

These are good trends, shows the economic resilience of the Nigerian economy in spite of persistent double digit inflation and falling consumption,

But.......the dangers show up when you dig deeperImage
First of, Nigeria's GDP growth is driven by the non oil sector.

The Non-Oil sector contributed 95.34% to the GDP growth for Q4 2024 in Nigeria

The Nigerian economy is not driven by crude oil, the Nigerian economy is diversified, the Nigeria FX revenue are not diversified.

...stay with meImage
So what sectors CONTRIBUTE to this Non Oil growth in Nigeria.?

I call them the big three; in real terms they contributed

1. Agriculture 25%
2. Trade 13%
3. IT/Telco 17%

These three sectors contribute more than 50% of GDP growth in Nigeria. These sectors, especially agriculture employ the highest number of Nigerians also.

This means, if these sectors boom, the Nigerian GDP booms

So are these sectors booming?Image
Read 9 tweets
Nov 26, 2024
Lets review the Q3 2024 GDP report for Nigeria

In simple terms, GDP means Gross Domestic Product, look at it like output. If a bakery makes 100 Agege loaves of bread and each loaf costs N100, then the GDP of that bakery is N100,000.00

In Nigeria's case, the total amount of "output" this quarter is N71t, if we factor in inflation, it becomes N20t

good? next slideImage
If you compare the GDP growth in Q2 2024 to Q3 2024, the growth is just 0.27%. This is anemic

Nigeria needs to grow her GDP faster than population growth which we can estimate to be 3%. Thus to grow at 4% per annum, Nigeria has to post a growth GDP 1% GDP growth per quarter

Looking at annual GDP, Nigeria posted 2.74% for 2023 to compare Ethiopia grew by 7.9%, and Ivory Coast grew by 6.5% in 2023Image
What drives Nigeria's GDP?

Nigeria's GDP growth is driven by three key sectors
1. Agriculture
2. Trade
3. Telecoms

For Nigeria to grow her GDP, it must grow these sectors. so lets take a look at how these sectors performed in Q3 2024 Image
Read 8 tweets

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