Nigerian stocks slumped by the most in nearly 25 months with just one stock gaining in a rout that pushed the market to its lowest level in the year on Monday.
The All Share Index plunged 2.41% at 2:30 pm in Lagos, the heaviest decline since a 2.41% decline in Feb 13 2018, to a year-low of 25,648.61 points Monday as banking stocks slump by 8.95%, the most since June 2013.
Only Consolidated Hallmark gained in the day, advancing 3.7 percent to 28 kobo per share while Access Bank, Conoil, Cornerstone Insurance, GTBank, Fidelity Bank, Oando and Stanbic IBTC were among the stocks that lost 10%.
Big lenders like Zenith, First Bank, and UBA were caught in the onslaught.
Stocks saw a disappointing Monday due to the fallout of an oil war by Saudi Arabia that caused oil price to fall by the most in over two decades to the lowest level since 2017.
OPEC had sought to balance Coronavirus-contaminated oil price by taking 1.5 million barrels per day out of the market. The cartel planned to take 1 million per day while Russia and group’s other allies contribute the other 500,000.
But lack of cooperation from Russia, the third largest oil producer in the world and OPEC Ally, saw Saudi Arabia initiate a price war, ramping up output and selling oil at a record discount that plunged price to around $35 per barrel over the weekend.
Brent has declined almost 22 percent to $35.41 per barrel so far today.
The current price puts the stability of the naira in jeopardy and echoes 2016’s decline that threw Nigeria to its first recession in 25 years.
Year’s return in Nigerian stocks now stands at a negative of 4.44%.
