Nigeria's NGX Index Surpasses 200K; Nvidia Forsees $1 Trillion in AI Related Revenue; Foxconn Profits Slides; and Musk Rebuilds xAI Leadership
- Dipo Owolabi
- Mar 17
- 6 min read
Markets are moving on multiple fronts, records are being broken, expectations are being reset, and pressure is mounting across tech and AI. Nigeria’s equities market has surged to a historic high, with the Nigerian Exchange Limited All-Share Index crossing the 200,000 mark as investor confidence deepens. In the U.S., Nvidia is leaning further into the AI boom, with CEO Jensen Huang projecting up to $1 trillion in orders for its next-generation chips. Meanwhile, Foxconn is facing investor skepticism after profits missed expectations despite record revenue, highlighting cracks in the AI optimism narrative. At the same time, Elon Musk is shaking up leadership at xAI as internal tensions rise and execution concerns grow. All this and more in today’s Read It and Eat! |
Markets Around The World
Markets as of 13th March 2026. Cells in RED mean that the value is down, cells in Green mean the value is up.
MAJOR HEADLINES
NGX ASI Crosses Historic 200,000 Mark As Rally Deepens
Nigeria’s equities market reached a historic milestone on Monday as the Nigerian Exchange Limited All-Share Index surged past the 200,000-point mark for the first time, reflecting sustained investor confidence and strong demand for equities. The benchmark index advanced by 1.55 per cent to close at 201,474.89 points, up from 198,407.30 points recorded in the previous trading session. The rally pushed the market’s year-to-date return to 29.47 per cent, while the month-to-date gain settled at 4.48 per cent, underscoring the strong upward momentum in Nigeria’s capital market.
Market capitalisation rose in tandem with the index, climbing N1.97 trillion to N129.33 trillion, compared with N127.36 trillion previously, as large-cap stocks drove gains across key sectors. The Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Exchange Group, Temi Popoola, described the development as a reflection of strengthening confidence in Nigeria’s capital market amid ongoing economic reforms. According to him, the milestone highlights the growing role of the market in mobilising long-term capital and supporting economic growth.
He noted that increased participation by domestic investors, improving corporate fundamentals and ongoing market modernisation were helping to reinforce the capital market as a catalyst for wealth creation and sustainable development.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NGX, Jude Chiemeka, attributed the record milestone to sustained investor engagement and broad participation across the market. He said crossing the 200,000-point threshold reflects strong demand for equities across sectors and reaffirmed the exchange’s commitment to deepening liquidity, strengthening trading infrastructure and ensuring efficient price discovery to support a transparent and resilient marketplace. Sectoral performance during the session was largely positive. The Industrial Goods index led the gains with a 4.52 per cent increase, followed by the Banking index, which rose 2.20 per cent, while the Consumer Goods index edged up 0.03 per cent. TributeOnline
CEO Jensen Huang sees $1 trillion in AI and Chip Related Revenue as Agentic AI Drives The Need For Inference
At Nvidia’s annual developer conference on Monday, CEO Jensen Huang took the stage to a packed house and said he expects purchase orders between Blackwell and Vera Rubin to reach $1 trillion through 2027.
Last year, the company had projections for a $500 billion revenue opportunity between the two chip technologies. Following Nvidia’s earnings report last month, Finance chief Colette Kress said the company expects growth this year to exceed what was included in that estimate. Huang said demand is booming from startups and big companies alike. Nvidia shares rose about 2% on Monday. “If they could just get more capacity, they could generate more tokens, their revenues would go up,” Huang said at GTC in San Jose, California. Nvidia’s graphics processing units for artificial intelligence have turned the brand into a household name and the most valuable public company in the world, worth about $4.5 trillion. As mass AI adoption shifts from chatbots to agentic apps that spawn off other agents to accomplish tasks, the number of tokens being generated has exploded, creating even greater need for running inference at faster speeds.
The chipmaker said in February that year-over-year revenue this quarter will surge about 77% to roughly $78 billion. The company has reported 11 straight quarters of revenue growth above 55%. Nvidia is scheduled to roll out Vera Rubin later this year. The system, which is made up of 1.3 million components, will deliver 10 times more performance per watt than its predecessor, Grace Blackwell, the company claims. That’s a significant development when energy consumption is one of the most critical issues facing the AI build-out. Also on Monday, Huang unveiled the Nvidia Groq 3 Language Processing Unit, or LPU, the company’s first chip from the startup that it mostly acquired through a $20 billion asset purchase in December, its largest deal ever. It’s expected to ship in the third quarter. CNBC
Foxconn’s fourth-quarter results highlighted a sharp disconnect between investor expectations and actual performance. While the company delivered impressive revenue growth, the market had been hoping for a significant profit increase, which failed to materialize. Instead, profits came in below forecasts, despite a surge in sales. For the quarter, Foxconn reported net income of T$45.21 billion, marking a 2% year-over-year decrease. This figure was well short of consensus estimates, which had anticipated at least T$63.86 billion. On the other hand, revenue reached a record T$2.6028 trillion, up 22% from the previous year. The disconnect is clear: investors had priced in profit growth to match the revenue gains, but the bottom line told a different story.
The main issue was shrinking profit margins. Although demand for AI servers fueled revenue, weak profitability in consumer electronics dragged down overall earnings. This margin pressure, particularly in Foxconn’s core business of assembling devices like iPhones, became the unanticipated risk that hurt results. Investors, focused on profits rather than sales, were disappointed when the consumer electronics segment failed to deliver. Essentially, the market had bet on an AI-driven profit beat, but the reality was a reset in expectations due to ongoing challenges in Foxconn’s traditional business lines. While record sales were a positive, they couldn’t compensate for the profit squeeze in legacy segments. This dynamic sets the stage for continued volatility: strong revenue momentum from AI is being offset by persistent margin challenges elsewhere.
In response to the disappointing profit figures, management sought to recalibrate expectations by offering its most optimistic outlook yet, projecting “strong growth” for both the first quarter and the entire year. This marks the first full-year guidance for 2026, establishing a new benchmark. If Foxconn can deliver on this promise, the stock could recover. However, skepticism remains high among investors. Foxconn’s share price has lagged the broader market, reinforcing this cautious sentiment. The tight range of analyst targets between NT$54.54 and NT$56.70, suggests little expectation of a dramatic rally. Instead, analysts are pricing in gradual progress, contingent on Foxconn’s ability to execute in the AI segment while stabilizing its legacy consumer electronics business. Reuters |
Musk Fired More xAI Co-Founders As AI Coding Effort Falters
Elon Musk has triggered a fresh wave of job cuts at his AI firm xAI, with more co-founders pushed out amid his dissatisfaction with the underperformance of the startup's coding division, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Musk last month overhauled the management of xAI, ahead of a planned initial public offering that could rank among the largest ever, after merging the company with his rocket firm SpaceX. He bought in "fixers" from SpaceX and Tesla to audit xAI, who let go of several employees whose work was deemed inadequate, according to FT.
Co-founder Guodong Zhang, head of xAI's Imagine team, told colleagues he was leaving after being blamed for issues with the coding product and relieved of his primary duties by Musk, the report said, citing two people familiar with the decision. He confirmed his departure in a post on X on Thursday. Zihang Dai, another co-founder, reportedly left xAI earlier this week. The exits leave the three-year-old AI company with only two of its 12 co-founders who helped Musk set up xAI in March 2023, according to the report.
XAI staff have complained that the upheaval is damaging morale and standing in the way of it reaching full potential, the FT report said. Researchers continue to leave because of burnout because of Musk's "extremely hardcore" work demands or after receiving better offers from rivals. Recruiters have been contacting candidates who had previously been rejected to extend job offers, often with improved financial terms, the report said. "Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview at xAI. My apologies," Musk said in an X post on Friday, adding that he will reach back out to promising candidates. xAI bought in Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg from code-generation startup Cursor on Thursday. Financial Times
Minor Headlines
F1's crypto sponsorships at risk as conflict forces cancellations CoinDesk
Gulf states lose $15B in energy revenues since start of war Financial Times
Britain's pound is March's surprise European currency outperformer, for now Reuters
British Airways Cancels Flight to Dubai until Summer Financial Times
Americans are Spending $300 Millions More on Gasoline Than One Month Ago Yahoo.Finance
Uber co-founder Kalanick launched Atoms in specialized robotics push Reuters
Financier who offered 'guaranteed' high yields pleaded guilty to fraud Wall Street Journal
Tether CIO Richard Heathcote steps down BankLess
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