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The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, has urged Nigerians to jettison the proposed planned nationwide protest against hardship in the country.

The Islamic group in a statement issued on Friday by its Secretary General, Prof. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, said Nigerians, should instead, pray to Allah for divine intervention.

According to the statement, “Arising from the recent calls and counter-calls for protest in Nigeria, occasioned by food insecurity, inflation, abject poverty and escalating national security challenges, it becomes very worrying and requires immediate attention.

Therefore, JNI under the leadership of His Eminence, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, with all sense of responsibility appeals to the protest conveners, their covert and overt benefactors, as well as other critical stakeholders and the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to urgently engage in critical and realistic dialogue before the situation degenerate or snowballs into an uncontrollable scenario.

Nigerians no doubt are passing through difficult challenges, but protest might not be the panacea.

The global landscape is replete with sordid tales of repercussions of protests in Libya, Syria, Iraq, US (Capitol Hill), Ukraine, Tunisia, Sudan, Russia, among others did not yield desired results, rather they rendered most of these countries either ungovernable or partly d£§troyed.

A glance through the events in Kenya gives some glimpses of what might envelop our dear nation Nigeria, which is struggling to survive the multiple challenges that dot the landscape of the country. Undoubtedly, protest in Nigeria could mar our efforts at addressing these challenges…(continue reading on next slide.)

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Bitcoin, which traded near $65,000 yesterday, was recently back above $67,000 as the Bitcoin 2024 conference continues in Nashville.

Thursday was relatively quiet for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with $31.1 million of inflows, according to Farside Investors. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop announced on X that the city's pension fund will soon invest in bitcoin ETFs, pointing to a potential 2% allocation. The State of Michigan Retirement System reported owning $6.6 million of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) in an SEC filing Friday morning.

In the spot ether ETF market Thursday, another $346.2 million flowed out of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), according to Farside Investors. That took the ETF's three-day total outflows to $1.15 billion, with $7.4 billion worth of assets still under management.

Total net outflows for the spot ether ETF market as a whole now stand at $179.1 million. Ether is up about 2.5% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.

Crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) was up 5% following the announcement of three new board members, One of them, Clement & Murphy Partner Paul Clement, will advise Coinbase on its ongoing battle with the SEC.

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Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL) beat expectations on the top and bottom lines with its second-quarter results Friday, sending its shares toward record highs.

The consumer products company, know for its toothpaste, deodorant, soap and other brands, posted net sales of $5.06 billion, up nearly 5% year-over-year and above the Visible Alpha consensus expectation. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at 89 cents, topping expectations of 87 cents. 

Colgate-Palmolive cited a “healthy balance" of volume growth and higher prices, saying that all its operating divisions generated volume growth in the period. 

The company raised its full-year projection for organic sales growth — sales not counting currency effects, acquisitions or divestments — to a range of 6% to 8%, up from 5% to 7%. Net sales are still expected to rise 2% to 5%. It also lifted its guidance for gross margins.

The stock was recently up about 4%, leaving it up more than 25% this year. The rise helped the S&P 500's consumer staples sector, which was up about 0.8% in Friday trading.

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The Federal Reserve’s favorite measure of inflation cooled slightly in June, paving the way for the central bank to rate cuts, likely in September. The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index rose 2.5% from the year before, down from 2.6% in May, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Friday’s PCE measure of inflation in June mirrors the trend shown by the Consumer Price Index earlier this month and was in line with economists' expectations.

The PCE measure of inflation is especially significant because it is the measure central bankers put the most stock in when setting the nation’s monetary policy. The Fed has held its influential fed funds rate at a 23-year high since last July in an effort to push inflation down to its 2% annual goal. 

Economists and traders expect the Fed will leave its key inflation rate at its current level when the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee meets next week. However, the central bank is widely expected to start cutting rates in September.

"The second quarter’s encouraging inflation data has set the stage for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates," wrote Moody's Analytics Economist Matt Colyar.

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Eli Lilly (LLY) shares dropped more than 4% on Thursday, continuing a hasty retreat from their record high earlier this month, as investors assessed the possible impact of a promising new weight-loss injection developed by Viking Therapeutics (VKTX) on the drugmaker’s own weigh anti-obesity drug, Mounjaro. Last week, Eli Lilly shares tumbled after Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche Holding AG said its new non-injectable weight-loss drug has shown encouraging early stage data.

Below, we take a closer look at Eli Lilly’s chart and point out important price levels to watch out for using technical analysis.

Eli Lilly shares have trended consistently higher since the 50-day moving average (MA) crossed above the 200-day MA in April last year to form a bullish golden cross signal. However, the stock’s technicals point to a potential reversal.

Firstly, as the drug maker’s stock climbed to a record high earlier this month, the relative strength index (RSI) made a comparatively lower peak to create a bearish divergence, indicating slowing buying momentum. Secondly, the price closed decisively below a multi-month uptrend line and the 50-day MA on Thursday, suggesting a breakdown of the longer-term trend.

Eli Lilly shares were down 0.1% at $820.00 in premarket trading about two hours before Friday's opening bell. The stock has lost 15% of its value since hitting its all-time intraday high of $966.10 on July 15.

If Eli Lilly shares continue their decline, investors should monitor three key areas on the chart where they could encounter support.

The first level to watch sits around $790, an area where the stock may attract buying interest near a horizontal line connecting an extended period of consolidation between February and May within the longer-term uptrend.

A close below this area could see a fall to the $725 region, where the price would likely find support from the lower portion of the consolidation period discussed above, which also currently closely aligns with the rising 200-day MA.

Finally, a more significant drop opens the door to a retest of the $625 level, where buyers may be happy to scoop up shares near a trendline linking the October and November 2023 swing highs with the low of a minor pullback in January this year.

If the current breakdown turns out to be a bear trap, which lures investors into selling before the price makes a prompt recovery, we can speculate an upside target by using a bars pattern.

We do this by extracting the trending move from April to July and applying it from Thursday’s low, which predicts a price target of around $1,060.

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After helping propel durable goods orders higher over the past several months, aircraft orders declined significantly in June, bringing the broader measure of business investment down with it.

Census Bureau data showed durable goods orders declined 6.6% in June from the prior month, reversing a four-month streak of gains powered by steady growth in transportation orders. It’s the largest one-month decline in the indicator since 2020.

Much of that decline can be traced back to transportation equipment orders, a subcategory of durable goods mainly comprising aircraft orders. It came in lower by 20% in June compared to May. Excluding transportation orders, durable goods orders were higher by 0.5% for the month.

The decline in durable goods orders was unexpected, as analysts surveyed by the and projected an increase of 0.3% for the month. Economists look at durable goods orders to indicate how businesses invest for future growth. 

“While the manufacturing environment is still struggling, this morning's data overstate recent weakness,” wrote Wells Fargo economists Shannon Seery Grein and Tim Quinlan. “Yet durables data are still consistent with a stalling in the industrial space.”

Economists said that Thursday's GDP report, which measures durable goods by how many were shipped, not ordered, shows that the industrial sector may be down, but not quite as bad as the dip in durable goods orders would indicate.

There likely won't be sustained improvement in the sector until the Federal Reserve begins to lower interest rates that have been held at decades-high levels for nearly a year, economists said. 

"Orders are likely to remain uneven until the Fed starts cutting interest rates in September,” wrote BMO Senior Economist Jay Hawkins.

The Fed is widely expected to cut interest rates by September amid signs that the economy is slowing and inflationary pressures are subsiding.

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