First HoldCo reported nine-month profit before tax of ₦911.24 billion to 30 September, up 60.84% from ₦566.54 billion, with profit after tax up 65.11% to ₦744.45 billion. Third-quarter pre-tax profit rose 22.49% to ₦257.71 billion. The shares gained 10% on Friday to ₦144.10, taking market capitalisation to roughly ₦6.5 trillion, still below the 2026 high of ₦165. Within the result, net interest income declined. The increase came from higher fee and commission income, gains on financial instruments, other operating income and lower impairment charges. Separately, UBA, Access Holdings and Fidelity Bank have not published half-year results, attributing the delay to pending CBN approval, while GTCO and Zenith have published half-year but not nine-month figures.

The headline is a 61% profit increase. The line that matters is that net interest income fell. Lending is the part of a bank that funds your business, and it shrank while everything else grew. That is the mechanism behind four consecutive weeks of decline in bank stocks, and it is the same story this brief traced through the ₦2.2 trillion that banks placed back at the central bank rather than lend. A bank earning more from fees, trading gains and lower impairments than from lending has no particular reason to expand credit, and its results will look fine either way. The disclosure gap is worth noting too: three significant banks have not filed half-year accounts and cite pending regulatory approval. That is a reason to be careful about drawing sector conclusions from the banks that have reported.

External reserves stood at $55.09 billion on 14 October, against $55.1 billion on 13 October, a decline of roughly $10 million or 0.02%. Reporting described this as the first decline in about three months, which is accurate but refers to a movement of negligible size. The corrected level for 9 October is $55.07 billion. On 14 October, Nairametrics published a corrigendum stating that the CBN had confirmed a figure of around $58 billion carried on its website was incorrect and had updated its data. Fitch Ratings projected in April that reserves could fall to $47 billion by end-2026. The underlying three-month trend remains upward, from about $51.94 billion on 28 July.

Last week this brief led its dashboard with reserves of $58.81 billion and a $3.73 billion three-day jump. That figure originated in a CBN website error which the Bank has since corrected, and the correction was published two days before our edition. We carried it anyway. The full accounting is below. What matters operationally is the revised picture: reserves are flat at about $55 billion rather than surging to an eighteen-year high. That changes the FX story materially when read against Development 2. A naira falling 2.1% in a session against a flat reserve position is a different proposition from the same fall against a rapidly accumulating one. The buffer is genuinely strong by recent standards. It is not growing the way last week's number implied.

The NLC's two-week ultimatum expired on 22 October. A meeting that day in Abuja ended without resolution because officials with authority to approve and implement the demands were absent. The parties reconvene at noon on Tuesday 27 October at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, with Labour requesting the attendance of the Finance Minister, the Accountant-General, the Budget Office Director-General and the Chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission. The six demands are a petrol price returned to 2024 levels, commencement of minimum wage renegotiation through a tripartite committee, implementation of agreed tax relief, payment of outstanding wage awards, implementation of the 5 February 2026 JOHESU settlement, and resolution of outstanding public sector issues including peculiar and hazard allowances. No strike date has been declared. Separately, the Dangote Refinery offer closes the same day, with the company stating it does not currently plan to extend again.

The reason the first meeting failed is the most informative thing about it. Labour did not walk out over the substance; the people who could agree anything were not in the room. That makes Tuesday a test of whether government is treating this as a negotiation or a holding exercise, and the attendance list will answer it before anything is said. For a business the planning question is narrow: assume federal services are disrupted in the first week of November if Tuesday fails, and assume they are not if the named officials appear. On the second deadline, the Dangote close means any subscription decision has to be made without an official subscription figure, since collated returns are not due until 3 November. The company's own statements remain the only source on demand.

The All-Share Index closed at 244,956.94 on 22 October, down 954.19 points or 0.39% from 245,911.13 on 20 October. Market capitalisation fell to ₦159.048 trillion from ₦159.668 trillion, a loss of about ₦619.55 billion over two sessions. Measured against the 16 October close of 247,539.73, the index is down roughly 1.04% on the week, a fourth consecutive weekly decline and the largest of the run; that week-on-week comparison is our own calculation from two separately sourced closes. Trading volume rose 3.4% to 360.75 million shares while transaction value fell 21.5% to ₦20.32 billion and deals fell 3.8%. Zenith Bank led by value at ₦4.12 billion, followed by GTCO at ₦2.56 billion.

Volume rising while value falls by a fifth means the average trade got considerably smaller. That is the signature of institutional money stepping back and retail churning in the gap, and it is a more reliable indicator of conviction than the index level. Four consecutive weekly declines with Zenith and GTCO topping the value tables tells you where the selling is concentrated, and Development 5 explains why. For an SME owner who holds no equities the read-across has been consistent for a month and is now firmer: the wealth effect that supported professional and premium spending through September has reversed, and the household data in Development 4 says the mass market went with it. Q3 bank results through late October and November are the next genuine catalyst.