The hike in the Monetary Policy Rate by the Central Bank of Nigeria created room for investors’ divestment into fixed-income securities as the inflation rate eroded stock return.
Meanwhile, a senior vice president of FBN Quest, Uwa Osadiaye, told The Punch that the depreciation in the three companies was due to profit-taking they recorded within the period.He said, “Seplat and Airtel have performed very strongly. But Seplat started having challenges with exporting by Q3 at a point during the oil theft. Productions were a little bit disrupted and as such prices were also sliding. Meanwhile, investors had already made a lot of money in Seplat.
“Generally, the common thing across these companies is profit-taking. The stocks did quite well across 2022.”, an economist and capital market analyst, the Chief Executive Officer, Greenhouse DBA Limited, Rotimi Fakayejo, said, “For Seplat and Airtel when you measured their performance for 2022, it was quite substantial. It is expected that the market bargain will not be in their favour all through. There is always a possibility of a sell-off and profit-taking.
“This is because the price of Airtel at the beginning of 2022 was about N640 or thereabout. And at a time it peaked at N2,040 and later it started coming down. And if you look at the performance in the last weeks, it’s been up and down. There is still value in it if they make sales.” He, however, attributed the shortfall in the price of Seplat’s shares to the paucity in the price of global crude.All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.