Nigerian stocks are headed for their worst single day decline after banking stocks slid the most in over three years Monday on news of oil price plunging to $35 per barrel.
The All Share Index plunged 2.05% in intra-day trade, one of the heaviest declines this year, weighed on by banking stocks that have fallen 8.74% – the most since June 2013 where the sector tracker lost a little more than 10%.
Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, Stanbic, alongside Conoil, Nacho, Oando, and United Capital have all lost 10 percent so far.
Big lenders like GTB, Zenith, First Bank, and UBA are caught in the onslaught.
NSE opened on a choppy note on Monday tracking sell-offs that followed the fallout of an oil war by Saudi Arabia which slashed the commodity’s price by the most in over two decades to the lowest level since 2017.
After failed oil production cut last week following the lack of cooperation from Russia, the third largest oil producer in the world and OPEC Ally, Saudi Arabia sold oil at a record discount that plunged price to around $35 per barrel.
Brent has declined almost 10 percent to $35.34 per barrel so far today.
The current price puts the stability of the naira in jeopardy and echos 2016’s decline that threw Nigeria to its first recession in 25 years.
