Economy
SEC Pledges to Create More Wealth for Investors
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Efforts would be made to create more wealth for investors and Nigerians and stimulate economic growth, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) promised.
At a meeting over the weekend, the Director-General of SEC, Mr Lamido Yuguda, said this would be achieved by deepening and diversifying the capital market.
He said when capital markets are developed, the entire engine of saving and investing and allocating resources to the projects with the highest expected returns is made easy.
“And if you do that effectively, you will see that you will create more jobs in the economy, create more revenue for the government and make life easier for all investors.
“When that happens, you have a lot of interested parties that want to put in their money to help the market develop,” he said.
The DG said in a bid to develop the market; the agency saw the need to have a forum where it could interface with issuers in a bid to discourage delisting.
“When issuers delist, they do because of certain issues. So, we decided to engage Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) and set up the Securities Issuers Forum. This was done to sit and discuss the issues and find solutions to them,” the SEC chief stated.
Mr Yuguda said that SEC was working hard to look at the various issues and ensure that the problem of delisting by companies is brought under check.
The SEC DG disclosed that the commission has put in place various other incentives to encourage companies to list, as listing provides enormous benefits to companies and investors.
“Listing enhances higher investor protection. This collaboration with NECA has been very fruitful, and that has given confidence to many of the players. We have started getting interest from the big players,” he noted.
He stated that some strategic listings have recently happened in the market, and the organisation was encouraging the diversification of the equity market by listing companies within power generation, telecommunications and foods.
He said, “We have had some strategic listings like the IPO of MTN, BUA Foods etc. and asset class creation or new products like derivatives have further helped diversify the listings from the huge leaning on the financial sector (banks and insurance) several years back.
“The problem with this market is when the big players do not list. So we started getting interest from the big players like MTN. And they decided to come in a very imaginative way. They decided to make the offer electronically so that people with telephones could subscribe without going through an intermediary,” Mr Yuguda said, assuring that the commission would continue collaborating with various market stakeholders to support impactful innovation in the capital market.
“For example, our keen support of the innovation by the Issuing House to the MTN IPO in 2022, Chapel Hill Advisory, further promoted the benefits of electronic-IPO (e-IPO), which made it possible for over 100,000 new accounts to be opened on the CSCS, most of which belong to youths and women- key subsets of our demography which is considered critical to sustainable growth.
“Information Technology and FinTech is fast becoming Nigeria’s new oil, and we continue to support the participation of fintechs in helping the capital market attract the youth and to help ease onboarding and ‘democratise’ access to wealth management services,” he added.
By Dipo Olowookere
A 0.17 per cent growth was recorded by the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Friday, extending the stay of the local bourse in the positive territory.
This uptrend was maintained despite profit-taking in the banking sector, which left its index down by 0.23 per cent at the close of trading activities.
Business Post reports that the insurance industry expanded by 4.04 per cent during the session, the energy counter improved by 1.05 per cent, and the consumer goods space gained 0.58 per cent, while the industrial goods sector closed flat.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) went up by 170.62 points to 102,353.68 points from 102,183.06 points and the market capitalisation grew by N541 billion to N62.851 trillion from N62.310 trillion.
There were 34 price gainers and 22 price losers yesterday, indicating a positive market breadth index and strong investor sentiment.
The trio of Caverton, Livestock Feeds and Sovereign Trust Insurance appreciated by 10.00 per cent each during the session to quote at N2.20, N5.94, and N1.10, respectively, as Neimeth jumped by 994 per cent to N3.43, and Royal Exchange increased by 9.88 per cent to 89 Kobo.
On its part, Academy Press lost 9.74 per cent to close at N3.15, PZ Cussons declined by 9.09 per cent to N25.00, DAAR Communications weakened by 8.64 per cent to 74 Kobo, Transcorp Power shed 5.91 per cent to settle at N46.95, and Dangote Sugar fell by 4.94 per cent to N38.50.
A total of 327.8 million shares valued at N11.8 billion were traded in 11,905 deals on Friday versus the 472.2 million shares worth N16.7 billion transacted in 12,336 deals on Thursday, representing a decline in the trading volume, value, and number of deals by 30.58 per cent, 29.34 per cent and 3.49 per cent apiece.
Access Holdings recorded the highest sales with 49.1 million stocks sold for N1.2 billion, Fidelity Bank exchanged 20.4 million shares valued at N359.0 million, UBA traded 20.1 million equities worth N681.0 million, Oando transacted 14.8 million shares for N998.1 million, and Universal Insurance traded 13.8 million stocks worth N8.7 million.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange extended its upward movement with a 0.26 per cent gain on Friday, January 17 amid renewed interest in unlisted stocks.
This raised the market capitalisation of the trading platform by N2.79 billion at the close of business to N1.075 trillion from the N1.072 trillion it closed in the preceding session.
In the same vein, the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) went up by 8.08 points at the close of transactions to 3,111.91 points from the 3,103.83 points recorded at the previous session.
Yesterday, the volume of securities traded by investors went down by 606 per cent to 486,215 units from 1.2 million units, the value of shares shrank by 84.7 per cent to N2.8 million from N18.0 million, and the number of deals decreased by 65 per cent to 14 deals from the 33 deals carried out a day earlier.
In the final trading day of the week, there were three price gainers and one price loser, Geo-Fluids Plc, which lost 9 Kobo to finish at N4.70 per unit versus the preceding session’s price of N4.79 per unit.
On the flip side, Okitipupa Plc gained N3.60 to settle at N39.59 per share compared with the previous day’s N35.99 per share, Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) Plc added 3 Kobo to wrap at 36 Kobo per unit compared with the preceding session’s 33 Kobo per share, as FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc improved its value by 49 Kobo to N39.65 per unit from N39.16 per unit.
At the close of business, FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 3.4 million units worth N134.9 million, trailed by Geo-Fluids Plc with 8.9 million units valued at N43.0 million, and Afriland Properties Plc with 690,825 sold for N11.1 million.
The most active stock by volume (year-to-date) remained IGI Plc with 23.5 million units worth N5.3 million, followed by Geo-Fluids Plc with 8.9 million units valued at N43.0 million, and FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc with 3.4 million units sold for N134.9 million.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira extended its appreciation against the US Dollar by 0.06 per cent or N89 Kobo on the US Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, January 17, trading at N1,547.58/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,548.47/$1.
Market analysts expect that the Naira will appreciate in the first quarter of the year, backed by continued policy support by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Vestance Nigeria, an agribusiness advisory firm, projects that the exchange rate will trade between N1,650/$1 and N1,750/$1 this year in its Resilience and Recovery for Agribusiness in 2025 outlook report.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will continue implementing reforms to enhance exchange rate market transparency while maintaining higher interest rates to curb inflationary pressures and attract foreign portfolio management,” it said.
Also, the Nigerian currency improved its value against the Pound Sterling by N20.84 to wrap the session at N1,883.59/£1 versus the preceding day’s N1,904.43/£1 and against the Euro, the Nigerian currency gained N10.45 to settle at N1,590.34/€1, in contrast to Thursday’s closing price of N1,600.79/€1.
In the parallel market, the domestic currency appreciated against the greenback by N5 yesterday to sell for N1,675/$1 compared with the N1,675/$1 it was traded a day earlier.
As for the cryptocurrency market, there was profit-taking amid excitement for a new era of crypto-friendly US government mounts ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration next week.
Crypto investors expect a change from Mr Trump who promised on the campaign trail to position the US as a leader in the crypto space including creating a national stockpile of Bitcoin, in stark contrast to past years’ regulatory crackdowns and enforcements.
Litecoin (LTC) fell by 9.9 per cent to trade at $124.56, Ripple (XRP) slumped by 6.2 per cent to $3.10, Cardano (ADA) dipped by 4.9 per cent to $1.06, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 3.1 per cent to finish at $3,270.61, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 2.3 per cent to $698.57 and Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 2.2 per cent to $0.3927.
However, Solana (SOL) rose by 8.8 per cent to end at $235.12, Bitcoin (BTC) expanded by 0.8 per cent to $102,494.03, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) sold flat at $1.00 each.
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