Equities Market Recovers, Gains 0.33% to Close at N36.89trn WoW

Despite losing three out of five trading sessions last week, the equities market of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) rounded off the week with gains of N121.51billion Week on Week (WoW) to close at N36.89trillion.

The market capitalisation of overall listed stocks closed yesterday at N36.885trillion, gaining 0.33per cent or N121.5billion from N36.764trillion it opened for trading during the week under review.

Consequently, the NGX All-Share Index gained 221.17 basis points or 0.33 per cent to 67,136.58 basis points from 66,915.41 basis points it opened for trading this week.

Capital market analysts have, however, expressed that the stock market is driven by domestic high network investors, and Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) with less contribution from foreign investors, stressing that foreign exchange challenges play a lesser impact on bourse fundamentals.

Activities in the local bourse have been dominated by local investors, who accounted for 90.49 per cent Year-till-Date (YtD) market participants, while foreign investors accounted for 9.51 per cent YtD as of September 2023. Analysts, therefore, believed that the report may not be a major concern for the local market as greater concerns are the local dynamics.

The Chief Executive Officer, Wyoming Capital and Partners, Mr. Tajudeen Olayinka stated that the downgrade of NGX from frontier status to Standalone Markets was activated because of persistent liquidity challenges around the official foreign exchange market, which crippled the capacity of foreign portfolio investors to replicate benchmark changes.

According to him, the difficulty to making investment decisions that are urgently required can be very devastating for foreign institutional investors, and that suggests persistent accumulation of losses in the opportunity space.

He explained further that, “This will obviously discourage foreign portfolio investors from participating in Nigeria’s stock market and possibly dampen of chances of liquidity recovery in the foreign exchange market in the immediate to near term.

“NGX All-Share Index (ASI) had experienced a pushback but recovered. I think government should continue to push hard on its foreign exchange reforms, in a way to address numerous challenges in the economy.

“There’s no doubt that the immediate past regime of President Muhammadu Buhari did so much damage to the economy.”