Economy
Futures Pointing to Mixed Open on Wall Street
By Investors Hub
The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a mixed opening on Monday following the pullback seen by the major averages last week.
A steep drop by shares of Boeing (BA) is likely to weigh on the Dow, as the aerospace giant is plunging by more than 10 percent in pre-market trading.
Boeing is under pressure following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which is the second crash in five months involving the company?s 737 Max 8 model.
Meanwhile, the broader Nasdaq and S&P 500 may move to the upside following the release of a report from the Commerce Department showing an unexpected uptick in U.S. retail sales in January.
After an initial move to the downside, stocks staged a few recovery attempts over the course of the trading session on Friday. The major averages rallied going into the close of trading but still ended the day modestly lower.
The Dow edged down 22.99 points or 0.1 percent to 25,450.24, the Nasdaq dipped 13.32 points or 0.2 percent to 7,408.14 and the S&P 500 slipped 5.86 points or 0.2 percent to 2,743.07. With the drop, the major averages extended the pullback seen over the past few sessions.
For the week, the Dow and the S&P 500 both slumped by 2.2 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled by 2.5 percent.
The initial weakness on Wall Street came after a report from the Labor Department revealed job growth nearly ground to a halt in February after soaring in January.
The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment edged up by 20,000 jobs in February after jumping by an upwardly revised 311,000 jobs in January.
Economists had expected employment to increase by about 180,000 jobs compared to the spike of 304,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.
The much weaker than expected job growth in February represented the worst month since the loss of 18,000 jobs in September of 2017, when employment was impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
However, FTN Financial Chief Economist Chris Low said the stark contrast between the January and February data suggests a “seasonal adjustment breakdown rather than a change in economic performance.”
“The three month average, 186k, is respectable, and far more realistic than either the 311k rise in January or the 20k rise in February,” Low said.
The report also showed the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent in February from 4.0 percent in January, while the annual rate of wage growth accelerated to 3.4 percent from 3.1 percent.
The jobs data largely overshadowed a separate report from the Commerce Department showing a substantial rebound in housing starts in January.
The report said housing starts soared by 18.6 percent to an annual rate of 1.230 million in January after plunging by 14.0 percent to a revised rate of 1.037 million in December.
Economists had expected housing starts to jump by 11 percent to a rate of 1.197 million from the 1.078 million originally reported for the previous month.
The Commerce Department said building permits also rose by 1.4 percent to an annual rate of 1.345 million in January after inching up by 0.3 percent to 1.326 million in December.
Building permits, an indicator of future housing demand, had been expected to drop by 2.8 percent to a rate of 1.289 million.
Concerns about the global economy also weighed on the markets after the European Central Bank downgraded its GDP forecasts and China reported weaker than expected trade data for February.
Energy stocks saw substantial weakness on the day amid a drop by the price of crude oil amid concerns about global demand.
Reflecting the weakness in the energy sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index plunged by 3 percent, while the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index and the NYSE Arca Oil Index tumbled by 2.6 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.
Concerns about global demand also weighed on the steel sector, as reflected by the 1.7 percent slump by the NYSE Arca Steel Index.
Meanwhile, gold stocks moved sharply higher over the course of the session amid a jump by the price of the precious metal, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index spiking by 3.5 percent.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) will, at the Commercial Bid Conference, announce the successful bidders for 50 oil and gas blocks in the 2025 Licensing Round on July 21, 2026.
The regulator said the conference would conclude an eight-month licence round that began on December 1, 2025, after President Bola Tinubu approved the exercise under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
The commission said the 50 blocks include 15 onshore, 19 shallow-water, 15 frontier and one deep-offshore block, covering basins such as the Niger Delta, Chad Basin, Benue Trough, Anambra and Bida.
It said the round aims to attract about $10 billion in fresh investment and to unlock discovered but undeveloped fields, fallow assets and gas resources. NUPRC described the 2025 round as the third licensing exercise under the PIA framework and stressed it is designed to prioritise natural gas development.
NUPRC outlined a five-stage process for the round — registration and pre-qualification, data acquisition, technical bid submission and evaluation, and the commercial bid conference — followed by ministerial approval and contracting. The Commission said it notified pre-qualified applicants on March 16, 2026, and closed technical and commercial bids on June 12, 2026.
NUPRC chief executive, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, had said the selection would be merit-based and would exclude weaker applicants.
She said only candidates with strong technical and financial credentials, professionalism and credible development plans would advance, and that winners would be chosen on a weighted combination of technical and commercial scores.
To widen participation, the federal government fixed signature bonuses for the round in a prescribed range of $3 million to $7 million per block, the Commission said, adding that bids outside that range would be non-compliant and excluded.
NUPRC said it would resolve the tied highest bids within the range by conducting a sealed rebid for the signature bonus, adding that successful bidders will receive Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) and may elect either a Concession or a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) framework, noting that the choice of framework will determine fiscal terms for up to two decades.
The agency noted that bidders were required to present host community development plans and to commit to remit 3 per cent of operating expenditure to Host Community Development Trusts. It said decarbonisation objectives and broader environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements were mandatory parts of submissions.
It warned that applicants with government debts, those that had previously failed to develop licences “vigorously and in a business-like manner,” or those found non-compliant with applicable laws could be disqualified at any stage.
The regulator said it expects ministerial approval and formal contracting between July and October 2026, after which awardees must execute concession contracts before licences take legal effect.
Recall that during the 25th Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) Energy Week in Abuja, the NUPRC issued PPLs to 12 companies across 19 blocks from the 2024 round. The Commission named recipients, including Boron Energy Limited, Energy Marketing and Supply Limited, Sahara Deepwater Resources Limited, Tulkan Energy E&P Company Limited and said that the exercise showed the licensing pipeline was functioning.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Mrs Olu Verheijen, has said Nigeria requires about $38.3 billion in fresh investment to sustain current oil and gas production and achieve its 2030 output targets.
Speaking at the recently concluded 25th NOG Energy Week Conference and Exhibition in Abuja, Mrs Verheijen said global investors are now prioritising countries with predictable policies, competitive fiscal terms and credible regulatory systems.
“For Africa, that question is urgent. And for Nigeria, the scale of the task is equally clear: to sustain the current base and grow toward our 2030 production target, analysis shows a financing gap of about $38.3 billion,” she said.
According to her, the era when countries relied solely on resource endowment to attract capital has ended.
“Capital has no passport. It is rational. It prices risk. It follows credibility. It asks one question: can this country turn resources into bankable projects, and bankable projects into reliable returns?”
She said Nigeria had deliberately repositioned itself through reforms aimed at improving investor confidence and accelerating project execution.
“We recalibrated fiscal terms, clarified regulation and streamlined oversight. We introduced targeted incentives and cut contracting timelines by more than half. We made a clear statement to the world: Nigeria is no longer asking to be trusted; Nigeria is working to be bankable.”
Highlighting progress recorded under the reforms, Verheijen said Nigeria now has more than $50 billion worth of upstream projects in its visible investment pipeline.
“We now have more than 50 billion dollars of upstream projects in the visible pipeline. In the last three years, more than 10 billion dollars of long-awaited final investment decisions have come through.”
She added that crude oil and condensate production has increased by about 400,000 barrels per day since 2023, while onshore production is at its highest level in two decades.
“Crude oil and condensate production has risen by about 400,000 barrels per day since 2023. Onshore production is at its strongest level in twenty years.”
Mrs Verheijen said the Federal Government remains committed to achieving its target of producing three million barrels of oil per day and 10 billion standard cubic feet of gas daily by 2030, while strengthening Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global energy market.
She also highlighted ongoing reforms in the power sector, including the N4 trillion Presidential Power Sector Financial Reforms Programme, which she described as critical to restoring confidence across Nigeria’s electricity value chain.
On gas development, she said the government was expanding domestic LPG supply, improving affordability and supporting investments through tax and import duty incentives.
“A gas-rich nation cannot be comfortable when families are priced back to firewood, charcoal or kerosene,” she said.
Mrs Verheijen stressed that Nigeria’s ambition extends beyond exporting crude oil to building an industrial economy anchored on value addition.
“We have chosen not merely to produce molecules, but to convert molecules into megawatts, fertiliser, petrochemicals, mobility, manufacturing, jobs and exports.”
She concluded that the country’s reforms were laying the foundation for long-term growth despite lingering challenges.
“The age of Nigerian hesitation is ending. The age of Nigerian ambition has begun. Our task now is to turn reform into relief, capital into projects, projects into jobs, and energy into national greatness.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate in June 2026 moderated to 15.91 per cent from 15.93 per cent in May, as pressure from the Iran war mildly eased, though it largely remained in focus during the review month.
In the report on Wednesday, the statistical office showed that the headline inflation rate for June on a month-on-month basis was 1.66 per cent, 0.09 per cent lower than the 1.75 per cent recorded in May 2026.
On an annualised basis, the print was down from 25.29 per cent in the same month of the preceding year (June 2025). This was due to the rebasing of the calculation year from 2009 to 2024.
The rise in prices, which stemmed from the continued conflict in the Middle East, continued to stoke food prices and energy costs, which account for a huge chunk of average spending.
The food inflation rate in May 2026 on a month-on-month basis was 3.75 per cent, up by 0.77 percentage points from May 2026 (2.98 per cent), while on a year-on-year basis, it was 17.52 per cent and stood at 25.41 per cent in the same month of the preceding year (June 2025).
At 15.91 per cent print, the inflation marginally beat expectations by Meristem Research, predicted at 15.95 per cent.
There had been expectations that the ceasefire between the United States and Iran would help drive oil prices lower, raising expectations of some relief on the inflation front. However, with conflicts now flaring up again, oil prices are likely to increase again, and the anticipated easing in energy-driven inflation may not materialise as broadly as earlier envisaged.
Meristem Research said it expects inflationary pressures to re-emerge across key economies in the near term, as the re-escalation of the US-Iran conflict has reignited upward pressure on global oil prices.
This will be a core factor that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will be looking at when it meets for the next policy meeting. At its last meeting, the committee left benchmarked interest rates at 26.5 per cent.
