Good Morning and welcome to this week’s edition of Bulls and Bears. This is a weekly thread where i look at happenings on the NGX, US equities and occasionally global macro.

If you have any questions, please feel free to share. You can also send an email to info@greentickertales.com or use this anonymous link.

A big shout out to everyone who turned up for the BBM webinar. Link below has the recording. April or May webinar will be a livestream. Id give a heads up on that. That way, we can talk more expansively. 

Starting with US equities

Last week’s trading session was a rough one. 

The three major indices closed in the red

The S&P 500 declined 1.7%

The NASDAQ Composite and the Dow both dropped 2.5%

What were the drivers? 

Another Trump tariff tantrum and a few numbers coming in soft.

You had a couple of earnings come in during the week. Popped into a few calls. So id focus on those i couldn’t go through. Walmart and Berkshire Hathaway.

For Walmart, the key points for me were 

A 13% increase in dividend this year the largest increase in over a decade.

global advertising growth of  27% to about $4.4 billion in the last one year. 

It will pay 96 cents in total for FY 2026. 

On the earnings call, as with almost every call these days. There was a question on tariffs. Management sounded pretty confident. 

Tariffs are something we’ve managed for many years, and we’ll just continue to manage that. We’ve got a great team. We know how to do that. We can’t predict what will happen in the future, but we can manage it really well. And we’re wired to try and save people money. So that will be our ultimate goal. 

On capital allocation

We are going to buy back more stock than we did last year. But we’re also going to invest in our business with capital expenditure. I think, we can be very balanced there going forward with both returning cash to shareholders and investing in ourselves.

Berkshire Hathaway FY 2024

Berkshire Hathaway numbers were pretty okay.

Operating profit for the year was up 27% from $37.3 billion in 2023 to $47.4 billion in 2024. 

Lots of chatter about the over $300 billion in cash the firm is sitting on. Warren Buffett isnt bothered 

“Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities. That preference won’t change…”

What’s happening this week on Wall Street?  

A couple of firms will drop their most recent quarterly results. 

Zoom drops its earnings today

Home Depot will do same on Tuesday.

Nvidia and Salesforce will release earnings on Wednesday. Nvidia earnings tend to rock the market and the tech subsector because of its size

You can get a broader calendar on earnings whisper or earnings hub.

Id try to cover a few of them on twitter handle as they drop. 

On a macro level, eyes will be on the incoming German government, and Gold which broke a record last week. Its barely a $100 away from $3000.  

Switching lanes to Customs Street 

Last week, the NGX All-Share Index appreciated by 0.41%. The index measures the average performance of stocks on the exchange. 

Abbey Mortgage Bank led the gainers. Up by 16.13% to close at N3.60

Other notable gainers were BUA Foods, Dangote Sugar and NASCON.

On the flip side, Union Dicon was the worst performing stock last week. It fell by 25%, opening at N8 and closing at N6, down N2. 

166,948,153 treasury shares of Dangote Cement Plc  were cancelled on Wednesday, 19 February 2025.

 Following the move, the total issued, and fully paid-up shares of Dangote Cement has now decreased from 17,040,507,405 to 16,873,559,252 ordinary shares. 

Still on Dangcem. It disclosed plans to invest $400 million to upscale a second production line at its Mugher cement plant in Ethiopia. This will double the facility’s annual production capacity to 5 million tons and is expected to become operational within 30 months. 

Additionally, the company plans to establish a new greenfield cement grinding unit with an annual capacity of 3 million tons.

Haldane McCall Plc has appointed Ojewande Adekunle Olufemi as the Finance Director effective from February 7, 2025, following his approval at the Board of Directors’ meeting. 

Ojewande has over 30 years of experience in accounting, financial management, taxation, risk control, and strategic business leadership. 

Prior to his appointment as Finance Director in Haldane McCall Plc, he was the Regional Finance Manager at Seven-Up Bottling Company.

 Still on HM Call. It will relocate its corporate headquarters, effective March 1, 2025 from 2 Shonny Highway, Shonibare Estate, Maryland, Lagos to Plot 9 (Now No. 4) Etsoye Close, Shonibare Estate, Maryland, Lagos. 

What’s happening this week on the NGX? 

It is going to be an extremely busy one in terms of earnings. Most firms will be holding board meetings to consider their audited FY 2024 financial statements. They then release them after the meetings. Some on the same day. Some a few days after.

Id have content across my substack, here and my twitter handle.

HM Call has an earnings call coming up within the week. 

Have  a great trading week ahead. END.