By Adedapo Adesanya
The year 2020 was very good for the NASD OTC Securities Exchange following the year-to-date return of 5.1 per cent it recorded.
A 5.1 per cent growth for an exchange like the NASD can be regarded as impressive because of the lesser attention paid to the OTC market by investors.
During the year, the alternative bourse traded a total of 7,930,325,502 units of securities worth N12.7 billion executed in 1,498 deals.
In the final trading week of the year (Week 53), investors gained N2.57 billion and this pushed the market capitalisation of the exchange higher to N525.94 billion from N523.37 billion.
In the same vein, the NASD Security Index (NSI) rose by 0.49 per cent or 3.59 points to close 733.00 points as against 729.41 points of the previous week.
During week 53, four stocks admitted on the NASD exchange appreciated in price and they were Geo-Fluids Plc, Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Plc, Nipco Plc and Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc.
For Geo-Fluids, which currently holds a market capitalisation of N2.93 billion, appreciated by 30.2 per cent to close at 69 kobo per share in contrast to the previous price of 53 kobo per share.
On its part, NDEP, which closed with a market capitalisation of N61.68 billion, gained 13.1 per cent to close at N340.0 per share versus N300.76 per share it was sold a week earlier.
Also, Nipco, which ended the year with a market capitalisation of N12.76 billion, improved by 9.7 per cent to finish at N68 per unit in contrast to the previous week’s N62 per unit, while CSCS, which had a market capitalisation of N75.25 billion, gained 3.79 per cent to settle at N15.05 per share compared with N14.50 per share it traded a week earlier.
Despite the positive environment, there was an 84.9 per cent decrease in the total value of shares traded by investors during the week to N5.0 million from N33.3 million of the previous week.
In the same breath, the total volume traded during the week dropped by 63.9 per cent to 1.1 million units from 3.1 million units in week 52 and there was equally a 42.9 per cent decrease in the number of deals to eight deals from 14 deals executed a week earlier.
There was a decliner as FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc, which currently holds a market capitalisation of N126.92 billion, lost 1.52 per cent to trade at N130.00 per share versus the previous price of N132.00 per share.
At the close of transactions, ARM Life Plc ranked top among the five most traded securities by volume with 7.4 billion units. CSCS traded 213.9 million units, Food Concepts Plc executed 152.2 million units, Lighthouse Financial Services exchanged 49.2 million units, while NASD Plc transacted 29.3 million units.
Also, ARM Life was the most active stock by value in the year, trading shares for N4.6 billion. NDEP transacted N3.7 billion securities, CSCS exchanged N2.9 billion stocks, FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria traded N846.4 million equities, while Nipco transacted N249.6 million shares.
