Good morning and welcome to this week’s Bulls and Bears. This is a weekly thread i do on the NGX and US stock market. The NGX is closed for the holidays while its a regular trading day in the US. 

Starting with the NGX. 

The market opened for four trading days this week as the Federal Government of Nigeria declared Friday 18th April and Monday 21 st April 2025 as Public Holidays to commemorate 2025 Easter celebration

The NGX All-Share Index declined by 0.32%. The index measures the average performance of stocks on the exchange.

Abbey Mortgage Bank was the best performing stock last week. The stock appreciated by 46.17% to close at N8.96, up N2.83.

GTCO led the losers for the last week. It declined by 13.24% to close at N59, down N9.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings, UBA, Custodian, Fidelity Bank,. GTCO, Zenith, NASCON and FCMB Group were marked down last week.

Wema Bank’s rights issue opened last Monday.

The bank is offering 14,286,785,417 shares at N10.45 per share on the basis of two  new shares for every existing three shares held as at the close of business on Wednesday, 5 March 2025, 

The offer will close on the 21st of May, 2025. 

Earnings on the NGX

UPDC FY 24 audited results. 

Revenue went up by over 100% from N5.3 billion in 2023 to N11.7 billion in 2024

Profit after tax grew by 277% from N221 million in 2023 to N836 million in 2024. 

The board has approved a dividend of ₦0.01 (1 kobo) per share. This amounts to a total dividend payout of ₦185,599,699.36. That’s a payout of 20% from the 5 kobo in earnings. 

Im baffled as to why they went for this. The firm is 93% owned by UAC and Custodian and that dividend is change. For retail, its next to nothing. Maybe to signal its back to the good days? 

Eunisell Interlinked dropped 9M 25 results. 

Revenue rose by 285% from N339 million in 2024 to N1.3 billion in 2025

Profit for the period rose by over 400% from N63.2 million in 2024 to N319 million in 2025

Access Holdings (parent company of Access Bank( dropped its audited FY 24 results. 

Gross earnings rose by 88% from N2.5 trillion in 2023 to N4.8 trillion in 2024

Profit for the period grew at a much smaller pace. It went up by 3.6% from N619 billion in 2023 to N642 billion in 2024

The firm has proposed a final dividend of N2.05, bringing total dividend to N2.50.

Downsides of the numbers for me were the high operating expenses. Total opex came in at N1.4 trillion, highest of the FUGAZ

First Holdco {parent company of First Bank) dropped its FY 2024 audited numbers.

Gross earnings rose by 105% from N1.5 trillion in 2023 to N3.2 trillion in 2024.

Profit for the year went up by 118% from N310 billion in 2023 to N677 billion in 2024

The firm has proposed a 60 kobo dividend. Rather disappointing when you compare to free cash flow per share and earnings. 

Another downer are impairment charges. I thought those sky high days were over. 

Nigerian Breweries dropped Q1 2025 results 

Revenue went up by 68% from N227 billion in 2024 to N383 billion in 2025.

The brewer recorded a N44.5 billion profit after tax compare to a N52 billion loss recorded in 2024

What’s happening this week? 

Access and FirstHoldco should have earnings calls. 

Wema Bank will have a facts behind the rights issue event at the NGX

Legend Internet will be listing by introduction on Thursday.

On to the US 

Last week was a red one

The S&P 500 fell by 1.5%.

The NASDAQ composite dropped 2.6%

The Dow was the worst performing declining by 2.7%

The DXY chart is currently trading at year low, fueled by concerns President Trump could sack Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

This indicates further dollar weakness against other currencies.

We are still smack in earnings season

On Tuesday, Tesla, , Verizon, Lockheed Martin drop earnings 

 Wednesday Philip Morris and Boeing will drop theirs.

Thursday  Alphabet (parent company of Google) drops earnings