Saudi Aramco overtakes Apple as world’s most valuable company
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s.oil giant, Aramco, has overtaken Apple Inc., as the most valuable company in the world. According to siasat.com. The company’s market share reached 46.20 riyals ($12.33) per share, owing to rising oil prices and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Aramco’s market capitalization was, at the time of writing, 9.24 trillion riyals ($2.464 trillion), which is $3 billion more than the technology giant, Apple Inc., which is valued at $2.461 trillion.
As of January 4, siasat reported, citing Bloomberg as its source, that Apple’s market value, buoyed by rising demand and speculation of introducing new products, peaked at $2.960 trillion but has since followed a falling trend, losing nearly $484 billion. A loss that may be associated with rising inflation and a Fed rate hike.
Saudi Aramco, which began commercial drilling for oil in 1938 in Well No.7, has given strong indications that it will announce a higher-than-expected profit margin, driven primarily by rising oil prices, when its planned Q1 financial result presentation takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
Before now, many investors have been taking a much deeper look at the company’s shares following the impact rising oil prices have had on the entire oil and gas industry. With London Brent and West Texas Intermediate peaking at $120/barrel and $112/barrel, the company shares moved in the same direction.
Siasat reported that Aramco’s profit rose to its highest level since it was included in the Saudi financial market due to the rise in oil prices.
According to its financial statement for the full year 2021, net profit increased by 124.4 percent from its 2020 figure to close at 412.4 billion riyals, which is approximately $109.95 billion in 2021.
Many investors believe that profit will continue to grow for the company and that anticipated returns to shareholders will drive the market value much higher. This follows the company’s cash dividend distribution to shareholders of 70.33 billion riyals ($18.75 billion) for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Nigeria stocks gain over N1trn week-to-date
Nigeria’s equities market rerouted north on Wednesday as investors bought Okomu Oil Palm Plc and other stocks. The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All Share Index (ASI) increased by 1.99percent on Wednesday, while the value of listed stocks on the Exchange increased by N557billion. The market’s year-to-date (YtD) positive return rose to 23.70percent.
Market watchers had predicted a rebound in Wednesday’ session on the premises that investors will buy up some of the fundamentally sound names which had lost in Tuesday’s trading session.
Our trend watch this week shows that the market which has seen two trading days of gains as against one day of loss has gained about N1.025trillion after rising 3.73percent week-to-date (WtD).
The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and market capitalisation increased from preceding day’s lows of 51,805.41 points and N27.928trillion respectively to 52,838.45points and N28.485trillion.
The share price of Okomu Oil increased most on Wednesday by N18.70 or 10percent, from N187 to N205.70; followed by Industrial & Medical Gases Nigeria which increased by 85kobo or 9.88percent, from N8.60 to N9.45; and Champion Breweries which increased by 40kobo or 9.93percent, from N4.03 to N4.43.
“As expected, investors returned to the market to mop up some of the previous session’s losers, focusing on the fundamentally sound names,” said analysts at Lagos-based Vetiva. They do foresee some profit-taking in Thursday’s session, while remaining expectant of a green close.
In 7,255 deals, investors exchanged 417,386,362 units valued at N7.331billion. Jaiz Bank, Transcorp, International Breweries, Unilever and Fidelity Banks were most traded stocks on the Nigerian Bourse
Rise in food prices likely to cause more unrest in Africa
Following the impact that the ongoing war in Ukraine has had on world trade, the continent of Africa, which has been hit the hardest, is likely to face more unrest due to the rise in food prices.
Oxford Economics Africa (OEA), stated that food prices have a greater impact on inflation than it does for the developed countries. This is because over 70 percent of households spend approximately 50 percent of their disposable income on food in Africa, compared to advanced countries, which spend less than 15 percent on food.
The report agreed that a number of factors, such as “the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine in Ukraine, bans on food exports such as palm oil, supply chain glitches and a drought curbing the US wheat crop, have sent prices skyrocketing”.
According to Bloomberg, the UN FAO food price index showed that prices rose by 13% in March, the highest and fastest rate ever, before falling slightly in April.
Rising food prices are a major source of concern for the continent; rising fuel, diesel, and kerosene prices are another factor that is likely to fuel both economic and political instability.Unfortunately, the number of businesses that have shut down due to the rising cost of doing business in the country has caused most governments in the continent to react, even at the expense of “fiscal consolidation,” according to Nel and van Eck of the research think tank.
Nel and Van Eck observed, as made available in their report, that Egypt and Nigeria have for now put a hold on several of their plans to address rising food and fuel subsidies, while Morocco, Kenya, and Benin have increased minimum wages to help their citizens deal with the rising food and fuel impact.
However, the Nigerian government just recently opened the borders, specifically the ones in the southwestern part of the country, to allow for a controlled flow of goods within the country. Despite this move, the cost of stable foodstuffs keeps rising.
The report said South Africa, on the other hand, has decided to extend its unemployment benefit for another couple of months while countries such as Ghana and Tunisia are unable to provide any meaningful support.
Many are expecting inflation data reports from most of the African countries to show a serious rise. This follows the release of inflation data from Ghana, which showed an 18-year high in April of 26.6 percent, driven mainly by rising food prices.
Read also: UAC of Nigeria registers N45bn Commercial Programme on FMDQ Exchange
NESG set to hold national dialogue on Nigeria’s economic challenges
Faced with insurmountable economic challenges confronting the country, one of Nigeria’s most respected economic think-tank-The Nigerian Economic Summit Group, is set to hold its economic dialogue that will proffer solutions for the country.
The event is scheduled to take place on May 20, 2022 in Abuja via a virtual and in-person session that will talk about six areas of critical importance that it believes the government should pay closer attention to.
Accordingly, these areas of importance are “weak and non-inclusive economic growth, infrastructure deficit, human capital deficit and skills gap, macroeconomic instability, weak economic competitiveness and national insecurity”.
The organisation believes that the country is at a critical moment of its existence which requires a total change in the way it handles national issues.
“As a result, Nigeria needs an urgent turnaround in policy choices and economic management to achieve improved socio-economic outcomes. As a result, there is no better time than now for the country to make good choices that will proffer short- and long-term solutions to our challenges,” NESG said.
The highly respected organization believes that discussing the challenges the country faces will help the political elite make the right decisions as we head towards the 2023 general election. they believe that forum like theirs will help policy makers design the right policies that will help the country get out of the problem that we are in.
“It is on this premise that the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) aims to hold a National Economic Dialogue discourse to highlight possible solutions to the myriads of socio-economic problems in Nigeria.
“The National Economic Dialogue on the state of the Nigerian Economy is crucial at this critical point in time because it offers a unique opportunity for us as a nation to come together and have a snapshot reflection on the current state of the economy, discuss the challenges we are facing, the choices that present themselves, the paths that lie ahead of us and the tough decisions that we must take to build a globally competitive economy that works for us all.”
Bitcoin hits 16-months low trades at $28,722.5
Reports showed that Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, traded at $28,722.5 this morning, Thursday May 12th, losing $2,276.8 or 7.34 percent from its previous day position.
Unfortunately, the decentralised coin has recently faced a number of challenges, falling from a high of $48,000 in March 2022 to $28,722.5, representing a loss of more than 35% of its market value.
We can see that the coin has lost around 41.98 percent of its market value in the last year.
Some analysts attribute the fall to the Fed rate hike, which made US bonds a more attractive option to investors. Some even associate the ongoing war in Ukraine with political and economic sanctions on Russia as the cause of its fall.
However, tradingeconomics has projected that Bitcoin should bounce back and peak at $34,156.3 on or before June 30.
