The Nairobi Securities Exchange rallied yesterday.The shilling was last trading at 85.50 and has hit an 18-month high.I believe the benchmark index can rally between 30-35% through year end.

It looks like we will have a clear first round winner and that the scale of the popular vote gives the winner an overwhelming legitimacy. The election on Monday and the reaction yesterday has confounded the worst expectations and that is a good thing.

In Commercial and Services Safaricom has rallied 2.59% to close at 5.95 and closed at a Level last reached on August 5, 2010. Safaricom is +17.821% in 2013. Safaricom will hurdle 6.00 in very short order. Kenya Airways rebounded 0.95% to close at 10.60.

Among banks

CFC StanBic Holdings reported full year 2012 profit before tax of 4.588088b +63.924%, full year profit after tax 3.009891b +63.67% and FY EPS 9.90 +65.275%, which is plain muscular. Interestingly CFC Stanbic reduced its customer lending by -17.284% over 2012. The share price rallied 4.8913% to close at 48.25 and has plenty of head room. The PE is 4.873.

In Industrial and Allied

EABL firmed 0.7% to close at 287.00 but was trading at session highs of 291.00 +2.11% at the finish line. EABL will cross its all time high of 315.00 from February.

KenolKobil which announced Friday that Puma Energy had walked away from discussions slumped 8.51% to close at 12.35 and traded shares as low as 10.10 which was -25.185% on the day.