MTN stock records its longest slide since 1995
The group’s shares have fallen more than 12% in eight days
Shares in mobile operator MTN, which has increasingly run into trouble in some of its key markets, have recorded their longest losing streak since 1995, with the stock declining for the eighth straight day on Wednesday. The share has lost more than 12% since the losing streak started, Bloomberg data showed, and on Wednesday closed 2.86% down at R75.05 — the lowest level since September 2018. The weak performance has been attributed to the mobile operator’s lower-than-expected profits for 2018 and as sanctions on its third-largest market, Iran, start to bite. A year ago — before MTN’s run-ins with authorities in Nigeria, its largest market, led to a sharp sell-off in the second half of the year — the share was trading at more than R122. On Thursday last week, MTN disappointed the market by saying its headline earnings per share in the year ended December would be between 80% and 90% higher than in 2017. Analysts had expected a higher increase, given that the numbers were coming off a...
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