Smart Investing with Nosa

Investing during periods of uncertainty can be more complicated than investing during almost any other phase of the business cycle, particularly from a behavioural / emotional perspective. It can be especially painful for investors who already had a sizable portfolio at the peak of the cycle, and who may have to watch significant and swift declines in their overall portfolio and net worth – at least before the recovery begins. I have received a lot of requests and questions regarding investing during and after the COVID-19 crisis and I will share my thoughts on some of the most common questions below. Before I proceed, I must say that my thoughts here do not constitute financial or investment advice and should not be taken as such. I would also like to add that I started the Smart Investing with Nosa Podcast (available on YouTube , Spoitfy and Apple Podcasts ) at the beginning of 2020 with the goal of simplifying investment principles and bringing practical insights to these ...

The Coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, bringing with it fear and uncertainty, as well as high and rising human costs. With almost 2.7 million confirmed cases as at Thursday, 23 rd April, the impact of the pandemic on economic activities has started to take its toll. The extent of the devastation in terms of human lives and on the global economy cannot yet be ascertained with certainty because a lot is still dependent on how long governments around the world are able to sustain the restrictions on social and economic activities, how the virus evolves over time, how long it takes for scientists to develop a vaccine, etc. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that the world would likely face its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression – the Great Depression began with the stock market crash of 1929, about a 11 years after the world last faced a global pandemic of this nature, and lasted for over a decade. The IMF economic outlook ...

"Where there's life, there's hope". These words, famously echoed by Stephen Hawking, have never been more apt than in the situation we currently find ourselves in. The world is going through one of the worst crisis in modern history - healthcare, economic, political, etc., all happening at the same time, and it is difficult to predict when things will get back to normal, if things will ever get back to normal or what the new normal would be. There is an overwhelming amount of information that is being circulated across various media platforms. The substance of the information overload ranges from the educative, to the humorous. However, a significant amount of the information that comes to the mainstream are about negative occurrences around the world. A lot of negativity is being passed around in the form of news and statistics. While it is important to stay informed about what is going on around the world, it is also important to recognise the impact that all ...

With entire industries across the country currently shut down due to the Coronavirus, one source which had continued to generate the much-needed cash and foreign exchange for the Nigerian government was the sale of crude oil, albeit at lower prices . This week, prices declined even further, causing Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil blend to sell for around $12 and $13 per barrel. Despite the low price of crude oil, Nigeria currently has about 10 million barrels of unsold crude oil, and traders expect this number to increase in the following weeks and in the month of May. These low prices (compared with prices from 12 weeks before) and the inability to find buyers for the 10 million barrels at such low prices can be traced to the Coronavirus pandemic which is still spreading across the globe. With factories shut down, and transportation and other economic activities put on hold across Europe and Asia (some of Nigeria’s major buyers), there simply is not enough demand to match oil ...

In an address by Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, on April 13 th , he communicated the decision to extend the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for another period of two weeks, due to the Coronavirus. He also stated that pallative measures had been approved and delivered to 2.6 million households, and that these pallatives will be sustained, with another 1 million households included in the scheme during the next two weeks. As has been seen all over the world, shutdowns such as we currently have in Nigeria come at great costs to the economy, and the President has demonstrated exemplary leadership by extending the lockdown, despite the short-term costs to the economy. Of course, an alternative course of action would result in consequences of catastrophic proportions. Unfortunately, making the right decision does not always result in good outcomes. The tendency for good decisions to lead to terrible outcomes is even greater when the decisio...

With over 1.4 million cases and 82 thousand deaths, as at 7 th April 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic has sent shock waves across the world and shows no signs of stopping soon. Projections and estimates about the extent of the outbreak are a dime a dozen, but one thing that most projections appear to agree on is that by the time the virus is contained or a vaccine is made available to the public, most people would have had an infected relative or would know someone personally, who was infected. The grim projection is largely due to the rate at which the Virus spreads and the long incubation period, which leads to many asymptomatic patients ( silent carriers ) being able to spread the Virus even before they become aware of their own infection. For comparison, the 1918 flu pandemic ( Spanish flu ), with a similar mode of transmission, infected around 500 million people (about 25% of the world’s population at the time), killing between 17 million and 100 million people, over a three ...