Author: Marketforces Africa

UK Fined PwC £15m over London Capital & Finance Audit The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed a 15 million-pound-sterling fine on PricewaterhouseCoopers for not reporting suspected fraudulent activities at London Capital & Finance plc. The regulator said despite facing “significant issues” during its audit of the mini-bonds issuer in 2016, with a senior individual acting aggressively towards auditors and providing them with inaccurate and misleading information, PwC did not report it to FCA and ultimately convinced itself that their accounts were correct. London Capital & Finance collapsed in 2019 over unfair marketing of its mini-bonds. “The FCA has fined…

Gold Tops $2,500 First Time on US Fed Rate Cut Expectation Gold rose above $2,500 per ounce for the first time on expectations that the Federal Reserve is inching closer to cutting interest rates. In the commodity market, spot gold rose above $2,500/oz on Friday afternoon, exceeding the previous record hit last month, ING analyst Ewa Manthey said in a note. The increase followed disappointing US housing data that has reinforced bets of faster and deeper cuts from the Federal Reserve. According to Manthey, lower borrowing costs are positive for gold as it doesn’t pay interest. The Fed has held…

GTCO, ACCESS, OANDO Drive Intraday Gain on NGX GTCO, ACCESS and OANDO are gaining at noon in the stock market, stockbrokers said. The equities market is seeing rapid buying interest in some banking names during the intraday trading session on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) on Friday. The market has started recovering from four day downtrend due to demand for Access Holdings, GTCO and other bellwether financial services companies shares. At mid-day, the NGX All share Index trended upward, reflecting a marginal gain of 0.02%, Alpha Morgan Capital Limited told investors in an emailed note. Stockbrokers attribute the positive movement in…

Court Forfeits Emefiele’s $2.04m, Properties, Investment in Shares The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the interim forfeiture of a cash sum of $2,045m linked to the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele. Justice Akintayo Aluko also ordered the interim forfeiture of seven landed properties linked to the suspended CBN Governor. The lands are listed as: “two fully detached duplexes of identical structures, lying being and situated at No. 17b Hakeem Odumosu Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos; an undeveloped/bare land, measuring 1919.592sqm with Survey Plan No. DS/LS/340 LYING, being and situate at Oyinkan Abayomi…

Oil Prices Fall as Geopolitical Risks Hangovers Persist In the global commodity market, prices of crude oil slid as geopolitical hangovers continued to put pressure on the supply and demand sides. Even with positive demand expectations in the U.S., the prices of crude oil nosedived while there are uncertainties about supply over tensions in the Middle East.  On Friday, oil prices fell as new cease-fire and prisoner swap talks began between Israel and Hamas, while uncertainty over the timing of a potential U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate cut increased. It is still unclear how and if Iran will retaliate against…

Tariff Removal: FG Sets Duty Rate Guidelines for Staple Food The Federal Government (FG) has unveiled guidelines for the implementation of the “Zero Percent Duty Rate and Value Added Tax” exemption on certain basic food items. The announcement is contained in a statement issued by the Spokesperson of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Abdullahi Maiwada, on Wednesday in Abuja. Maiwada said that President Bola Tinubu approved the guidelines through Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy. On July 8, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, announced the suspension of duties, tariffs, and…

Nigeria’s Economic Activities Fall for 13 Months –CBN’s PMI Nigeria’s economic activities contracted for thirteen months consecutively in July, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) composite purchasing manager index (PMI), which stood at 49.7 points.  However, the index shows improvement compared to the 48.8 points recorded in the previous month, as the PMI produced by the apex bank revealed. According to the PMI, output level, suppliers’ delivery time, and stock of inventory expanded in July. New orders and employment contracted at a slower rate compared to the levels recorded in the previous month. The sectoral breakdown shows that…

Dangote Cement Plc has launched a novel Internship Scheme for students of tertiary institutions in the country that will see the students undergoing a one-year

Investors Bet on Nigerian Bond as Debt Office Tightens Supply As investors take a bet on the naira assets, the average yield on the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) bond declined by 3 basis points in the secondary market due to buying interest at the mid-end of the curve. A slew of fixed income securities traders and analysts said the Nigerian government’s bond offering has decreased after the authority frontloaded its past issuances. Next week, the Debt Management Office is expected to conduct its monthly primary market auction, where it will offer investors N190 billion worth of government bonds. This…

Treasury Bill, OMO Yields Diverge ahead of Inflation Data The average yield on Nigerian Treasury bills and the OMO moved in different directions in the secondary market after the two naira assets saw their returns converge around 25% in the recent past.  On Tuesday, the average yield on the Treasury bills shrank as demand for naira asset increased in the secondary market. On the other hand, the market witnessed selloffs in the OMO market. Treasury investors were noted to be taking positions ahead of inflation data and the expectation that the economy will rebound in the second quarter. Nigeria’s consumer…