Right from one portal, you can access all the major stocks, financial markets and macro-economic data on Nigeria: http://vip.urbizedge.com/economy

And it is very interactive.

You can set the date you want to compare stock or bond performance over.
It has technical analysis to help you see which stock or bond or exchange traded commodity or exchange traded fund is a good buy or bad buy.
It shows you the current inflation rate, FX reserve level, GDP growth rate, FDI, current bond yield, parallel market exchange rate, money supply, interest rate and many more.

Again, you can access it at http://vip.urbizedge.com/economy

Enjoy! Remember that it daily updates.

Last month, a close friend called me about an urgent situation he was in and if I was close by (since it was just a street away from my office). The situation? Policemen harassment. He wished he had body camera so he could record all happening without them noticing.

I thought it was a good idea, an insurance or personal safety type of decision. So I went online to read more about body cameras. Below is a summary of all I gathered:

1. Body cameras are different from spy cameras. They are not very inconspicuous and not meant to be used to spy on people. Best to think of them as your carry on CCTV. Use them to have video evidence of situations you might need to have evidence for. Heard of a car sales man who was saved because he put on the very brand of body camera I bought while showing a client a car and allowing the client test drive the car. The client eventually bought the car then later complained that there was a tear on one of the seats. As usual, it became a my word against your word situation, and for that type of transaction his superiors were more inclined to appease the client. Luckily, the body camera was filming when he was showing the client the interior of the car, and it actually captured the debated spot. Guess what, there was no tear there. So the tear must have happened after the client bought and took the car out of their premises. Another lady said she uses it when walking in a relatively unsafe neighboorhood. Some use it when walking their dogs. Some when jogging. Some when driving. And my friend would have used it when he was been wrongly detained by policemen (though spy camera would be better).
2. Most body cameras record in 5 min clips. They do record for as long as the battery lasts (mine lasts about 4 hours), but in chunks/clips of 5 mins long. That way it is easier to identify the clip that is needed/relevant and delete others.
3. Many body cameras can also be set to do just audio recording. So you be more relaxed to put the device out of sight and get just audio recording.
4. There are usually two categories you come across online or in stores: one for security folks and police, and another for regular people. The one for police is usually in form of a wearable vest and very very conspicuous. The one for regular folks is designed to be easy to carry and less attention grabbing.

After reading through many reviews on Amazon and other sites, I settled for one that had very great and positive reviews: ehomful Body Camera HD 1080P

I used DHL's eShop to place the order and to get the delivery of the item here in Lagos.

I also bought another drone.

The first one I bought about 4 years ago is not very easy to learn to fly with. So this time, I bought a beginner and even children targeted drone. It is very small and marketed as very easy to fly (and use to kickstart one's journey to flying bigger and more sophisticated drones).

Again, after going through heaps of online reviews and YouTube videos, I settled for HolyStone drones. Originally wanted to buy Holy Stone HS720 Foldable GPS Drone with 2K FHD. It has the best reviews and ratings (both on Amazon and the expert YouTube reviews I checked) as per value for money and sophistication. It is foldable and compact enough to easily carry to beach and events you'll like to film or fly it at. It has anti-loss features -- will return to you/home once battery is low, has a return home button to make it fly back to you/home from where it is. It has "follow me" which makes it automatically follow you at a set altitude and get you awesome filming without you carrying the remote or always pressing it. It has good (enough) cameras for hobbyist recording. And it's regarded as a generally good quality and feature rich drone.

However, it is not an absolute beginner drone. So I decided to go for a very cheap and highly recommended absolute beginner drone: Holy Stone Mini Drone for Kids and Beginners It is small and great to fly indoors, so perfect for learning.

Due to its low price, I decided to buy it on Aliexpress (so I don't pay shipping fee that is more than the cost of the item).

On Tuesday we had our year start meeting and one of the decisions we concluded on is to have one intern spot always. Preferably for undergraduates.

We felt it would be a very good way to help students get exposure to the data analytics field and some corporate world valuable skills while we also get their fresh ideas and an extra hand to help with non-core tasks.

One of the ideas we have been implementing is giving back to the society and skilling university/polytechnic/college-of-education students with data analysis skills before they graduate. We have spent money on the platform and are almost done with it. We call it Microsoft Excel Club, www.msexcelclub.com 

We are working on have a presence in all the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in the country. And value proposition to the students are:

1. Free certificate training on Data Analysis and Business Intelligence (certificate is by our USA educational platform partner)
2. Exposure to global competitions in the data analysis space
3. Exposure to internship opportunities (which is why reserving an intern slot in our company is one way of committing to this even as we try to get other companies too to give internship opportunities to the students on the platform)
4. Local chapters with leaders who are supported with financial and educational resources to drive offline training and educational activities
5. Gamified system of encouraging participation by allocating points to schools and students, and giving prize awards to the top schools and students each year/quarter.

You can check out the platform: www.msexcelclub.com  We are combining learning from AIESEC and other global educational platforms to create this model of covering all the higher institutions in Nigeria without a large permanent administrative team.

And this month, we are looking to kickstart the intern opportunity in our company. For this cycle we are looking for the following:

1. An undergraduate doing his/her compulsory industrial training placement (internship)
2. Studying a course that can align with our business space to make it easy for him/her to do his/her IT report
3. We have identified courses like Business Admin, Accounting, Mathematics, Computer Science and similar courses as an easy fit
4. The student will do a mix of admin, data analysis, data entry, financial data analysis and sponsored training activities. For one doing Computer Science or Mathematics we will expose him/her to big data analysis, programming and machine learning.
5. The role is a temporary 3 to 6 months one
6. It is on a rolling basis so we can give this opportunity to 2 or 3 people each year
7. We pay a monthly stipend and give some of our office perks (health insurance etc)
8. The person must be able to work out of our Lagos office

If you know someone eligible and who may be interested, do notify him/her to send his/her CV to hr@urbizedge.com 

Again, we can only take one person per cycle. There will be 2 or 3 or 4 cycles a year. And it is not open to graduates. Strictly for undergraduates (be it a student in university or polytechnic or college of education).

Thanks.

image: escrime.org

2019 was a real estate year for me. I went from not having any single real estate investment to buying 3 (and my wife bought 1). I did a lot of research and visitation to the different places I saw potential (good returns) in. I even started keeping multi-year records of price trends by location and type of property across Nigeria. It opened my eyes to some reality you wouldn't come across if you get most of your information from real estate marketing folks or online adverts.

This post is to share where I consider are the good locations to own real estate properties in Lagos.

1. Already developed densely populated areas in Lagos (if you have the money).
Land and property prices (even rent) are always steadily increasing in Ikoyi, Ikeja, Victoria Island, Lekki, Yaba, Gbagada, Ilupeju, Ogudu and other developed well populated areas in Lagos. 

So if you have the money, owning real estate there is a good choice. You don't have to wait many years to realise the profit or steady income you want. You get the most creative options on how to squeeze returns out of your property: flipping, residential rent, commercial rent, partnering with a developer, event centre, car park, etc. 

The only barrier for many of us is the capital requirement.

2. Ibeju Lekki
It's easy to think that the hype is overhyped about Ibeju Lekki. Yes, there are places there that are not currently worth the prices they are sold for. There is a lot of misinformation that I recommend that anyone buying land or property there should go see it for himself before buying or he could be sold a chicken for the price of an eagle (and marketed to him as an eagle). Seeing is vital.

I went round the major places in Ibeju Lekki and also from my price trend analysis, of all the developing places in Lagos, it comes on top as the place with the most potential growth/return. While other towns are marketed mostly based on promises of government infrastructure and proximity to a university, Ibeju Lekki is not all promises but reality. There already are multi-billion naira investments going on there. And companies are already setting up there. Also, many big real estate companies have projects there which involve some intensive infrastructural spend and increases the overall value of the area. 

I went from being very skeptical of the potentials there and worried by the over-marketing I saw going there, to seeing the reality of what it is and where the good options are. I eventually bought a land inside Beechwood Estate. And its price has already gone up since I bought it less than a year ago.

3. Ikorodu
You can't hear the Lagos state government talk about the road constructions and infrastructural developments without mentioning Ikorodu way more than any other part of Lagos. 

I went round Ikorodu and there's no mistaking that Ikorodu is rising fast. It's a very large town and some areas show more promise and less traffic than others. 

I also bought (though still paying and not yet given physical allocation) a plot there.

4. Agbara
The land prices are depressed due to the bad Lagos Badagry road. And I strongly believe when the roads are fixed (which is a certain to happen thing), real estate prices will rise there and rent will go up too. There are a lot of companies there and the staff like to live close to the company. You will be amazed by how many manufacturing companies are there if you do not work in a field that puts you in constant contact with manufacturing companies.

I am yet to buy any land or property there but have it on my watchlist. 

5. Festac
The Apapa issue, road problem, security issue and traffic issue in Festac have depressed prices of real estate in the entire area, especially of the Festac Extension that is priced affordably. I believe that when these issues are resolved (and they would be), the price of land, property and even rent will shoot up.

I don't yet have immediate plans to buy there. Mainly due to my budget allocation to real estate investment. I only just have it on my watchlist.

6. Badagry
Badagry is a cultural site. On paper, you won't get what this connotes. But when you visit Badagry you will see what amazing influence being a cultural site can have on commercial and developmental interests. Badagry is a bubbling town. I couldn't believe my eyes when I went there. It was like the town is a secret. Like going through forests to Wakanda. That feeling of something this awesome is in somewhere like this.

It makes for a great country home location. A place to have a house for family get together/unwinding once a year. And you can also rent out to tourists or put up on Airbnb. You can be more creative with how you squeeze returns from your real estate property there than you would in a regular non-popular low cost town.

I also got a plot there (though still paying and no physical allocation yet).


Those are the places I have my minds on as good choices of where to acquire real estate.

Every month, I set aside some money to put in real estate. For my first land, I bought it outright but felt it would have been easier or better if I had been saving monthly towards it. Now I just seek out offers that allow monthly installment mode of paying. I also try to identify places of interest way ahead. Lastly, I have to make a compromise between buying land and developing the one I have bought. I try to switch between using my monthly real estate allocation for land purchase and house building. Just that house building is a massive money gobbler that I am still looking for a reasonable way to doing within my allocation constraint.

UNION is an interesting DAX formula. Simple yet powerful in what it makes possible for you to achieve. 

I will be demonstrating with a simplified version of one of my real world use cases for UNION.

Say you have created a Waterfall chart showing cashflow (or inventory quantity or staff addition/reduction, sales quantity) movement month on month through out the year and with the final position as at year end.

The (simplified) source table looks like this

But you want to see the opening cash (or opening stock or staff count at start of the year etc).

There are many ways to get it in if you are given that data but the way we will explore today is using UNION formula.

UNION is a DAX formula that allows you to append/join two or more tables. And in this demonstration I will show you a cool way to create a literal table in Power BI DAX (a table with rows of data that you type in yourself in the DAX).

Say you were given the opening cash position as N2m and you just want to plug that in and move on with your analysis and chart. If it were Microsoft Excel, that will be as simple as adding a new row in your table. How do we achieve the closest to that in Power BI?

Union Table = UNION('Cashflow Table',{(2019,"Opening Cash",2000000,0)})

{(2019,"Opening Cash",2000000,0)}

is the literal table part. And if I wanted multirow table it's just to put each row in the () separated by comma. For example:

{(2018,"Closing Cash",2000000,0),(2019,"Opening Cash",2000000,0)}

With this new table I can create the type of waterfall chart desired. Note though that if you have a very large table, you might want to create a UNION with a SUMMARIZE 'd copy of the table rather than duplicating the entire table.

You can watch the much more engaging video demonstration of this: https://youtu.be/zNCYmSLM2cg 

I have been switching between DSTV Now, Showmax and Netflix these last 6 months. And in today's post I'll give you my own review of the different offerings.

DSTV Now
If you already have DSTV then you should try the DSTV Now. It allows you to access your DSTV subscription on your computer, tablets and phone. And if you are part of a family with an active high cost DSTV bouquet, then this is a good choice. 

Mutltichoice included a value add. You can watch on demand movies in addition to the live TV. I loved this extra. And they put very good movies on a weekly basis that you can browse through and watch the ones you like. 

Just know that you'll have to link the DSTV Now to your smartcard and DSTV subscription.

Showmax
Showmax is Multichoice competition to Netflix. For less than what Netflix charges you'll get access to lots of movies (maybe thousands). 

They've got a large collection of high quality TV series. Lots of HBO series. Including Game of Thrones and popular (newer) HBO series. That's one thing they have that Netflix doesn't have. Another plus over Netflix is that all their movie collections are available for Nigeria. Unlike Netflix where many of the good and new movies are not available for Nigeria (but available for US) even though it's same monthly charge. A third plus for Showmax is the much richer collection of African movies and series. Even the Big Brother Show was available on Showmax.

One negative. though slight, is that not all the movies on Showmax have subtitles. I love subtitles. It's part of the reason I stopped going to the cinemas. Another issue to grapple with is that locating the good movies can be a lot of digging on Showmax. What I do is I search using the name of popular actors/actresses. With that I was able to locate very excellent movies I never got to see by just scrolling or browsing the genres.

Netflix
Netflix has the largest collection of movies compared to the other two.

They've got excellent series. But not always true for the movies for those of us in Nigeria. For every one very good movie you find there are 3 you won't find but someone else in US will find on Netflix. So I have just resolved to running a concurrent ExpressVPN subscription so I can always change my location to US or Canada and be able to see more great (and new) movies.

Another negative I have with Netflix is that their self-produced movies (not series) are crappy. I have tried many times to locate an exception and I failed each time. They are great at intriguing movie themes and even story line, but still the entire outcome is poor. I just avoid them even when there is an A-list actor in it. 

Netflix is more expensive than Showmax. But compared to DSTV Now, it will depend on the DSTV bouquet you are on, though I can say at a value for money parity, Netflix is cheaper.

image: dataquest.io

Nowadays, I see bankers, ICT engineers, project managers, sales managers, finance managers, HR managers, lawyers, accountants and many people already deep into a different career path all wanting to switch completely to data science.

I don't know where the pressure is coming from but some of them don't know that doing that switch can be retrogressive -- taking a lower grade/paying job and limiting your career growth. 

In the corporate world, a data scientist is HR managed as a data analyst using new set of tools. To a large extent, the same career paths await both. As a data scientist you will always work under a manager and it could the someone who is a project manager like you were before you made the switch. So that's the lower grade possibility I mentioned.

Also, your hiring is focused more on you doing a technical task more than on you doing a manager-level task, and it can be a very career limiting positioning. You are seen as data analyst with more powerful tools and new age skills. You will almost always have to answer more to other people and have (usually) no one to answer to you. You work back-end, the IT type of back office role.

If you do this (actual data science work) for too long (say 5 years), then there is a problem. Stagnancy. And that's because any significant career progression in a non-consulting company would mean you doing less of the actual data science work but managing other people to do them.

Let's call all what I have said - side 1 (of my opinion coin). I said it with the assumption that you do indeed learn at this your old age and limited free time to become a data scientist.

Side 2 is the expectation of how long short it would take them to be a proficient data analyst.

Taking a couple of courses will definitely help you stand out better than another candidate with same situation and ambition. But if I am looking to hire a data scientist, the skills I would be looking for is way beyond courses and training you have attended. I would be looking for real world project portfolios. I would be looking for your knowledge contribution in that space (deployed projects online, tutorials you post online, communities you are part of and active problem solving skills that demonstrate your mastery of the methods + tools). But then again, most companies in Nigeria are not really seeking Data Scientists. They are just looking for regular data analysts that can use more than Excel. Maybe Power BI, SQL and familiar with Python or R. And on the job you'll just end up using Excel and a BI tool. But as usual, they'll rather exaggerate the competence requirement. 

I see many people get that type of jobs and I see many of the bankers, ICT engineers, project managers, sales managers, finance managers, HR managers, lawyers and accountants actually think that is Data Science. 

Data Science. A Data Scientist is someone who would use more of python and R, build predictive models and deploy as products or integrated tools powering major processes within the company. Not someone doing daily and weekly reports with presentation and BI for management. 

In an insurance company, a data scientist would be building programmatic models that analyse risk and create on the fly customized insurance product for the insurance company's potential clients. So John can be on the insurance company's website and fill a well tuned form, and instead of being presented with static buckets of insurance covers he gets a cover fine-tuned for him with a premium cost that is unique to him (computed by a data powered dynamic algorithm). While the folks tasked with creating the day-to-day operations and finance report - regardless of the fancy tool they now use - are just data analysts.

In a lending or financial service company, a data scientist builds the model that predict default risk, do customer segmentation and do product offering simulation to determine perfect pricing on an ongoing basis.

In a telecoms company, a data scientist would model product offerings, do customer segmentation, do churn prediction model, build algorithms that power marketing activities and sentiment analysis.

The type of education and preparation to become a data scientist is nothing less than 9 months full-time (not spare-time) learning, online project contributions and real world projects building. And with a good (diploma level) grasp of statistics, algorithms, data structure and predictive modeling (machine learning). Anything less and you are not a data scientist.

image: varchev.com

I am currently doing a Master of Science in Financial Engineering (MScFE) with the WorldQuant University (currently they operate tuition free, you can apply via https://wqu.org/) I am in my third course out of total of 12; running into my fifth month out of 18 total months for the MSc.

It has been a very pleasant experience. I found it more structured and rigorous than the non-free MBA I did with a European university. So, if you are interested in the world of quantitative finance and investments, I would say you should give it a try. Just know that getting in is not a walk in the park and the program is very demanding -- you'll do lots of advanced calculus, some python and R programming, some finance and lots of mathematics. 

Last year, I finally got inducted as a chartered stockbroker upon completing the intensive 1 year exams. And due to a pact CIS Nigeria has with UK Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments, I was able to do just one ethics-type exam and become a member of the UK Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments. So I now use the designations ACS and ACISI (UK) in front of my name. And more importantly, I have achieved one of the milestones to my goal of setting up a financial securities trading and investment company.

I hope to use the MScFE to learn the skill of building financial investment products and improving my securities analysis skills.

I have been taking a more structured approach to my investing. I now do a monthly allocation of my ex-expenses disposable income to different asset classes:

• 20% to Real Estate
• 50% to Stocks
• 10% to Money Market
• 20% to Cryptocurrencies

In addition, all my online USD income goes to my US equities account.

The needed push to taking this structured approach to having a portfolio that spans these major asset classes came from the learning in the MScFE course 1 (Financial Markets). So no more thinking asset class A vs asset class B, but how much of asset class A and how much of asset class B.

This year I hope to see more improvement in my personal finance and investments as I learn more from the program and put those learning to practice. 

If you have Telegram, then you should try out the chatbot I created for the Nigerian stocks and macro-economic data: t.me/NigeriaMarketDataBot 

You can ask it for the stock price of any listed company or bond. You can ask what the parallel exchange rate is. You can ask it what the current level of Nigeria's FX reserve is (clue, it is at a very worrying level, start insulating yourself against a likely devaluation). You can ask it what the financial statements of Zenith bank (or another listed company) are. And you'll get answers right in your Telegram. 

Awesome, isn't it?

You can also access it on Facebook Messenger: https://www.messenger.com/t/nigeriamarketdata

And also, 

wait for it

wait for it

*drum rolls*

*more drum rolls*

I have figured out a way to do very well in the Nigerian stocks market. And if you consider my pedigree - 14 years in the market with the last 5 years being one of intense active investing/trading on the NSE, and that I have been building solutions + analysis around the stock market -- then you too can feel as optimistic about what I am about to announce just as much as I felt when I came about the discovery.

Here's the background story.

In 2006, I bought my first shares. In less than a year it grew x10.
In 2009, I spent a huge chunk of my savings in Fin Bank IPO. I didn't get shares certificate and all my efforts to trace were futile. I swore off IPOs in Nigeria. It was like sending a parcel via NIPOST. If anything goes wrong, you are on your own, the system was messed up will little accountability and you'll just be bounced around. (Anyway, I heard its positively different now).
In 2011, I started playing the secondary market.
In 2012, I started stockpiling and analysing financial statements of companies listed on the NSE.
In 2013, I created the most accessible online repository of those financial statements for downloading by anyone online. For free.
In 2014, I started putting approximately all my savings in the stock market.
From 2015 - 2019, I was high, I was low and I was mostly confused. All the book knowledge, analytical work and patience were not paying off as I expected. And no one could explain in an eye opening way what to do differently. Believe me, I did ask a lot of questions from people I thought should know. Most sounded like they've given up on the Nigerian stock market. One even is the head of a top investment management firm. Oh, I asked the guys at NSE too.
2020 Today: I think I have found the strategy I have been lacking.

You can access my discovery at http://vip.urbizedge.com/economy 

I found out that using the MACD of 50 SMA ~ 250 SMA, I would be able to get longterm buy and sell signals. I wouldn't be day trading or doing swing trading or any of the short term trading I am not interested in (as I prefer long term investing and want to avoid the crazy high transaction charges in our market). Backtesting this MACD based strategy has been a reconfirming outcome. So much that I feel bad for not coming upon this earlier.

Now if all I have said sounds like Greek to you. A simpler equivalent is that I have found a way to know when the stock market (or specific company) is going down seriously and when it's going up seriously. 

When you visit the automated Power BI dashboard I use to track these, http://vip.urbizedge.com/economy , the last two pages are the critical ones. And you too can freely use this.

Cheers!

image: inspiringwishes.com

Happy new year! Welcome to year 2020! May it be a glorious year for you and all your loved ones.

My new year resolution is to write a blog post daily from 1st of January 2020 to 31st of December 2020. That is my only special resolution this year.

Last night, I did a quick review of 2019 and what to improve in the new year. My company, UrBizEdge, grew greatly in 2019 but it's becoming extremely demanding on me. I am constantly cycling from worries of salaries and expenses to onslaught of competition to owing clients to deadlines on current projects to employee management issues to product development to customer demands to emails/chats/meetings/requests overload. I can't seem to have a mentally relaxed day or even hour.

Right now I am struggling to set aside a new concern about how two of my staff are no longer pulling their weights and just doing the barest minimum plus a bit of eye service. 

I have not been able to continue my novel, Akin Smith. I no longer do my French learning exercises. I don't go to the gym anymore nor even do the easy in-house exercises. I don't write anything that's not work related.

I do not envy the super rich and celebrities. Just the few meeting requests, emails, chats, texts and phone calls I get by being a little visible in my tiny segment of data analysis space is almost running me crazy. Even though I try not to offend people or come off as arrogant, I still had to slowly retreat from many requests. Some are from friends wanting to catch up. Some are from people wanting to give us business but love meetings. And a few from people I respect highly and who helped me in my starting days with referrals and mentor-like advice; I came to a juncture where I had to decide to not have to disappoint them by staying a bit far from them.

Why this particular new year resolution?

What I want in life are very simple and I have always known them since I was 13. Writing is one and being rich is not. Sadly, most of all I do these days makes it look the other way round. And with having a proper (no longer solo) business, I don't see myself getting away from the pursuit of money. So at the minimum, I should write more. Creative writing. Even if it means adding more to my burdens.

When I was much younger, filled with too many African Writer Series novels and Shakespeare and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott and Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain and Plato's Dialogues, I thought I would have written a novel like Things Fall Apart before I reach age 30. A novel like the Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. One that shows future generations what life was like in our generation. A book a girl in year 2120 would read and understand the Nigeria of today.

The pattern my daily schedules are taking is not one that gives me any room to achieve that goal. So I am attempting to take back some control and keep the aspect of me that has been existing before adulthood (with its responsibilities).