Nigerian stocks set for biggest weekly fall in a year

Nigerian stocks were set to post their biggest weekly drop in a year on Friday, down 12.7 percent this week on worries over sliding oil prices and the bleak outlook for the naira currency, traders said.
The oil exporter's main stock index, with the second-biggest weighting after Kuwait on the MSCI frontier market index, has fallen for six straight days.
The index fell 2.68 percent on Friday, leaving at its lowest point in nearly 3-1/2 years.
Stock Exchange CEO Oscar Onyema on Thursday said the bourse expected 2016 to be challenging after the index shed 17.4 percent last year, with losses continuing as the domestic economy suffers from low oil prices.
He said foreign buyers, who accounted for 54 percent of trading volume, were on the sidelines owing to the lack of clarity on Nigeria's forex policy, highlighting naira weakness as a deterrent to a market rally in 2016.
Sub-Saharan Africa's second-biggest stock index shed 13 percent in the same period last year, just before the central bank pegged the official naira rate at 197 to the dollar.
That de facto devaluation, aimed at halting a currency slide, has been undermined by the fall in black market rates due to the drop in oil prices.
The naira has also dived 34 percent on the black market compared with the official rate after the central bank stopped dollar sales to retail currency outlets.
The naira's slump has intensified speculation that Africa's top oil producer will have to formally devalue the currency soon.
The index of Nigeria's top 10 banks fell 4.94 percent to lead the bourse lower. Top decliners included Cadbury, Oando each down more than 9 percent while Dangote Cement, which accounts for a third of market capitalisation, shed 3.7 percent.