Estimating Production Losses From COVID-19 Pandemic Disruptions Based On Stock Returns

Economic or local disruptions that affect organizations production activities often result in unexpected losses. An excellent example is the recent COVID-19 pandemic disruption which affected many economies globally. This study presents a deterministic model and uses simple regression analysis to estimate the average condition for production losses. Its corresponding components input resources impact the overall estimates for selected organizations in Nigeria. It is anticipated that variability in economic activities is always accompanied by unconventional stock returns whose behavior indicates prevailing economic trends. Here we have looked at two organizations in the manufacturing sector as a case study Nigerian Breweries (NB) and Nestle Nigeria, whose stock prices [X] upon analysis reveal that at [X] ≤ N30 and [X] ≤ N821 are estimated conditions for zero net profit for both organizations respectively. Therefore, for NB, during the four quarters of the 2020 fiscal year, the following were assessed production losses, 3.47 billion Naira (Q1), 4.17 billion Naira (Q2), 3.72 billion Naira (Q3) and 0.68 billion Naira (Q4) with a total of 12.04 billion Naira annual estimated losses; with Costs of Goods Sold (COGS), Operating Expenses (OpEx) and Selling and Advertising Expenses (SAEX) having 39.6%, 44.5% and 15.9% impact on the estimates. Nestle Nigeria records estimated production losses of 5.8 billion Naira (Q1), 6.4 billion Naira (Q2), 4.2 billion Naira (Q3), and -0.8 billion Naira (Q4) (gain), resulting in a total 15.6 billion Naira annual estimated loss; and COGS, OpEx, and SAEX having 45.9%, 48.2% and 5.9% impact on the estimates respectively. This implies, SAEX had the most negligible percentage impact on overall estimated production losses for both organizations compared to COGS and OpEx. This study, therefore, reiterates the position of other economic reports describing the adverse effects of the pandemic in Nigeria; while also serving as an investment analysis guide to potential investors.