Powell Defies Trump - Nigerian Stocks On Fire - MTN Q1 Profit Up 165%

Added: 2026-04-30

[00:00:05]Now for global business updates, Rutus Udiri joins us. Good morning Rutus.

[00:00:10]>> Good morning Dr. Abasi. Good morning.

[00:00:11]Good morning. All our viewers, we begin of course where else oil touched 126 and then eased up a bit. You've already gone through everything. Hexet is 25 billion which is under reportported and much much higher according to what analysts are saying. And JD Vance just wants to hedge himself against 2028 when he runs.

[00:00:30]He wants to try and act like he's so Anyway, so 123 and this is before the look just Dangote refinery has again raised prices. So everybody brace yourselves. All right. Uh the Fed Reserve held rates 13350 today at the Phil just across the road, 1335.

[00:00:49]>> That's PM that's the fuel diesel. That one is at 2,000 now. Probably better.

[00:00:54]Um, we had the Bank of Japan held, the Fed held, but this, as I said, no surprise. Everybody was pretty much look talking about um Jerome Pow's future.

[00:01:03]So, and so this what you're about to hear from me has nothing to do with interest rates. He's basically talking about the criminal probe, how it's ended. He was happy, but he said he is staying on the board. Here's Jerome Powell.

[00:01:13]>> I welcomed the announcement last Friday by the US attorney for the District of Columbia that she had closed the criminal investigation. She also noted, however, that she would not hesitate to restart the investigation.

[00:01:26]Over the weekend, the Department of Justice provided assurances that they will not reopen the investigation unless there's a criminal referral from the Fed's inspector general. And absent such a referral, if they do appeal the recent court decision, they would not seek, as part of that appeal to restart the investigation or send new subpoenas.

[00:01:48]I've said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality and I stand by that. I'm encouraged by recent developments and I'm watching the remaining steps in this process carefully.

[00:02:03]My decisions on these matters will continue to be guided entirely by what I believe is in the best interest of the institution and the people we serve.

[00:02:11]After my term as chair ends on May 15, I will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined.

[00:02:18]>> Now, Powell is breaking with a 75-year president where usually after you hand over the Fed chair position, you ride off into the sunset. But he's staying because of this uh probe. Now, to the this was expected. So, as you said, no surprise, 3.5, 3.75. But look at the vote. Surface area analysis would just say, okay, 8 8 to four, four denters, highest since 1992. But why did three of them uh descent? Let's take a look at the actual three of them that desented.

[00:02:41]So you've got the way it works, the FOMC, you've got, you know, your seven um members of the Fed board. Then you've got regional um presidents uh that also they rotate that for your 12 member board. So seven plus another four. These three individuals here, you've got Lori Logan who's the president of the Federal Reserve of Dallas. You've got Neil Kashkari who's the president of the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis. And then you've got Betty Hammock who's the president of the Cleveland. Three of them desented to the language of further easing in the future. Powell put out there that it's possible they could they could cut rates. The three of them said no sir tariffs are still feeding through to consumer goods. Oil prices are still high. Energy prices are still high. So they desented and said, "Listen, this is not the time to be cutting rates." Which and of course, well, this guy, he's leaving, by the way, Steven Moran is the um, you know, if you will, Stew pigeon that Trump put on the board in the hopes that he could pressure Jerome Power to leave so he could get a permanent place.

[00:03:38]Now that Power says he's staying, man has to leave because Kevin Walsh is going to come in as a member of the board as well, also as Fed chair. So, he's out. I know Trump now posted something on truth saying Pow wants to stay because he can't find work anywhere. Um either way, Kevin Walsh coming in now is going to have a challenge with cutting rates with what Trump wants because of these denters. He has to convince them. This is um a comment from one of the asset managers in the United States, Kevin Flanigan.

[00:04:06]He's the head of investment strategy at Wisdom Tree. Wisdom Tree is one of the biggest issuers of ETFs, exchange traded funds in the United States. They run they handle about 11520 billion dollars in assets under management. They said if anyone was expecting immediate rate cuts when Worsh comes in, they're going to be disappointed. It will depend on the data over the next 6 weeks and longer to get these three denters, those three individuals I just showed you to go from dissenting to actually wanting to cut rates again. So interesting times uh ahead. We go to big tech. got enough time to go through all the earnings, but the this this this is the fulcrum of everything you've seen with chip stocks in Korea rising and the whole AI play.

[00:04:50]So these are your hyperscalers. Alphabet parent of Google, Meta of course parent of Facebook, you got Amazon and Microsoft. They are spending so much money. They've now guided to $725 billion in capital expenditure for AI for 2026. That is 77% higher than the 400 the 410 last year 410 billion was already a record. So it's because of the the increased demand. We've talked about how Korea leaprogged UK to become the eighth largest stock market in the world built on the amount of demand going into chips for SKH and Samsung. We talked about Taiwan leaprogging uh Canada to become the sixth largest exchange in the world because TSMC Taiwan semiconductor has a 45% you know weight in the index. So all this money, all this money that they keep spending is going to these chip designers around the world and that is how you see this. This is what is pretty much anchoring the US economy right now is the amount of money these folks I mean plus consumer consumer um spending.

[00:05:48]Let me show you the manifestation of that. Samsung which of course along with skynix makes up almost 45% of the index in Korea. This is mindblowing earnings.

[00:05:58]They just released this Q1. This is in Korean one Q1 revenue 133 trillion.

[00:06:03]That's about almost $90 billion. Look at their operating profits. It was 57.2 trillion by 38. Their chip income, this is where everyone should focus on the chipm units jumped almost 48 times. It made up almost 94% of the operating profit. All from demand from chips. And in their earnings call, Samsung saying there's even the demand. They can't even meet the demand that the demand we've seen in 2026 is actually going to be higher in 2027. This is from Kim Jun who is a memory chief executive. Our supply falls far short of customer demand.

[00:06:36]Based solely on the demand currently received for 2027, the supply to demand gap for 2027 is set to widen even further.

[00:06:46]Call your financial advisor and ask them about investing in AI. We had to add a fire emoji to Nigeria. We had to we because yesterday the Nigerian stock exchange just I mean look at this with 3.7% yesterday.

[00:06:59]It has broken last year's record in the first quarter.

[00:07:02]>> Amazing.

[00:07:03]>> 52%.

[00:07:05]>> And we did 51 all last year. Well, look, you know, markets go up and down, but I mean, by now the 152 trillion, MTN released their earnings. Q1 earnings.

[00:07:13]Look at these numbers just for Q1 revenue. If you annualize this, I know you have to wait till the other quarter.

[00:07:19]This is 6 trillion for full year 2026.

[00:07:22]41% gain there. Look at the subscribers.

[00:07:24]MTN is gaining to almost 90 million subscribers. This is the one I'm always teasing folks in the gallery, everybody about everybody's always on their phones all the time typing. As much as the FCCPC says that Nigerians complain the most about Telos, banks and airlines, this number keeps going up. Refer of course talks about empirical facts. My empirical fact is that despite Nigerians complaining much about data and telecom service, >> you still get more people using data. It just keeps going up. Profit after tax.

[00:07:51]Um, look at that. 165%. NTN is the biggest company on the Nigerian stock exchange. 18.8 trillion. Boa foods is in second about 16 17. Dang cement at about 16. Uh round off with our new reports.

[00:08:04]Oh, it's finally done. Uh on real estate um in Lagos, the builders of modern Lagos. We I know there's a lot going on today with a lot of live broadcast and so but hopefully we'll play it on the global business report at 11:00. But here's a preview.

[00:08:20]>> Now the shape of the city is changing.

[00:08:23]Lagos is no longer only spreading across the swamps and the mainland. It is climbing into the sky.

[00:08:32]Look out across Lagos and you can see the city changing shape in real time.

[00:08:37]Not just spreading as it has for decades, but rising tower by tower, crane by crane. A new skyline is taking from here. Built by developers, engineers, investors, architects, and thousands of workers chasing an idea of what modern Nigeria should look like.

[00:08:52]These buildings are more than concrete and glass. They are statements of ambition. They tell a story about money, power, taste, and confidence. They tell a story about a city determined to announce itself to the world.

[00:09:14]All right. Hopefully 11 o'clock. You see that later on.

[00:09:16]>> Good stuff, my brother. Good stuff.

[00:09:18]Thank you very much.