Coronavirus: Oil tumbles below $45 per barrel, Wall Street Loses $3.4 Trillion In One Week

By Uche Mbah

Massive selloffs continue in the World stock markets as supply chains are disrupted all over the world, with China bear-bruised. Techs, Airlines and Energy stocks got hit as Brent falls below $45 per barrel, putting the Nigerian budget in disarray. Although Budget implementations have been very poor with huge deficit financing, the national Assembly had pegged the Budget benchmark as $57 per barrel.

Chinese economy is currently on partial shutdown due to the virus, and the whole of Europe and Asia are on edge as investors are not blinking their eyelids to sell of stocks.

Particularly hit are airlines since most now have restricted routes.

This aMagazine has earlier reported the impact on local tech Market.

Lukman Otunuga, FXTM research analyst, was quoted by The Cable, an Online Medium, as saying that recession will continue to hang over the Nigerian economy for as long as crude oil remains the primary source of revenue.

“Falling oil presents negative consequences for the economy, especially when considering how roughly 90% of export earnings and over 50% of government revenues are from crude exports,” he told The Cable

“What is even more alarming is Nigeria’s 2020 budget which has set the benchmark for oil at $57. With Brent and Crude both depreciating over 15% since the start of 2020, it raises tough questions whether Nigeria will meet its oil revenue goal of N2.64 trillion.

“The woes do not end here. Foreign exchange reserves are poised to decline on lower oil which not only complicates the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to defend the Naira but raises the risk of inflation running rampant.

“The toxic combination of lower government revenues, rising consumer prices and weakening local currency is more than enough to threaten Nigeria’s fragile economic recovery.”

24 cases have been exported from Italy to other countries, says the world health Organization. The Nigerian case is an Italian.

Government has been criticised on the way they are handling the disease.