BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Naira gains N5 against U.S dollars; Nigerian refineries report N10.3bn loss in two months; Other stories

Hello, and welcome to Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week -from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.

Here are the Headlines:

• Naira gains N5 against U.S dollars
• Bitcoin weakens Tesla financials
• IMF retains 2.5% growth projection for Nigeria
• Nigerian refineries report N10.3bn loss in two months

Summary:

After two days of pressure, the Naira appreciated against the United States Dollar at the segment of the parallel foreign exchange (FX) market on Thursday.

The naira appreciated to N520 to a dollar on Thursday after hitting a low of N525 to a dollar the previous day, according to data from Abokifx, a platform that collates exchange data.

Tesla reported an impairment related to bitcoin investment in its Q2 financial statement for the period between April to June 2021, revealing the carmaker is still in possession of the crypto.

Tesla had acquired $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in March, to announce its entry into the cryptocurrency market, a move that caused a surge in bitcoin price until May.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Govt debts to banks hit N12.5tn; DPR hints at fuel price hike to N1,000 per litre; Other stories

In its financial reports, Tesla placed the most popular cryptocurrency under profitability, but wrote that it suffered bitcoin-related impairment of $23 million during Q2.

Three government-owned refineries being run by The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have reported a N10.3billion loss in the first two months of 2021.

According to the most recent NNPC Monthly Financial Operations Report (MFOR) the refineries recorded total revenue of N581 million but had an operating cost of N10.9 billion.

The three refineries are Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) and the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) with a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has retained Nigeria’s 2.5 percent forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth this year.

The institution disclosed this in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) for July titled: “Fault Lines Widen in the Global Recovery” released on Tuesday in Washington DC.

According to IMF, the slow rollout of vaccines was the main factor weighing on the recovery for Low-Income Developing Countries (LIDCs) including Nigeria.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Market cap down by 0.78% as investors lose N159.5bn

The losing streak in the Nigerian capital market reached the third day on Thursday following the drop in the market capitalization to N20.051 trillion at the close of the day’s business.

This was N159.54 billion or 0.78 percent lower than the N20.210 trillion posted by the bourse on Wednesday.

The All Share Index was down by 306.21 basis points to settle at 38,484.82 from 38,791.03 reported the previous day.

Investors traded 259.96 million shares valued at N1.98 billion in 4,975 deals on Thursday.

Quite a low-key week on the Nigerian tech sector as no visible product launch made major headlines, a drastic fall from the previous week.

While, on the surface, it seemed difficult to link a factor for being responsible for the circumstance, the just concluded Muslim festivity, however, could be responsible.

Howbeit, two major news (on VC launch and AfriLab‘s membership) featured Nigeria.

Remarks

Thanks for joining the roundup this week. See you next week for another serving. Don’t forget, for the latest news and updates from around the globe, keep reading Ripples Nigeria.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now