Securities Dealers Call for Integrated Market to Harness Opportunities

Goddy Egene

The Chairman, Association of Securities Dealing Houses of Nigeria (ASHON), Chief Onyenwechukwu Ezeagu, has called for a more integrated capital market in the West African region to take advantage of emerging trading opportunities such as the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTFA).

Appraising the current state of the Nigerian capital market, Ezeagu noted that all efforts must be geared towards enhancing global competitiveness and the government must also play pivotal role in this regard.

“ Africa needs a connected capital market that can compete globally with the dispensation of AfCTFA. At the core of AfCTFA) is the need to lift Africans out of poverty. It should be pointed out that there has been an existing model of the West African Market Integration (WAMI) which has a great potential for expansion. There is a compelling need to exploit this opportunity for global competitiveness,” he said.

Ezeagu explained that the demutualisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) would accelerate the transformation of the market as the investment destination of Nigeria.

“ The exchange can achieve a market capitalisation of about $200 billion in 2022 with its approved demutualisation. For the umpteenth time, we are calling on the federal government to deepen the capital market through liberalisation of moribund state assets and corporations to become profitable ventures. With its demutualisation, The NSE has joined the ranks of all demutualised markets globally. The process has taken our market several years to actualize and I commend all the stakeholders in the capital market ecosystem. Opportunities are there for demutualised exchanges in Africa to collaborate and operate as a single hub to attract capital and investment,” he said.

Meanwhile, trading at the stock market closed on positive note as the NSE All-Share Index appreciated by 0.07 per cent to close at 38,799.83, while market capitlisation added N3.9 billion to be at N20.3 trillion. As a result, the year-to-date decline has stood at 3.7 per cent. The growth recorded yesterday was spurred by gains in Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and Access Bank Plc.

However, trading activity reduced as volume and value traded declined 59.2 per cent and 62.4 per cent respectively to 145.3 million shares and N1.6 billion. The most traded stocks by volume were FBN Holdings Plc (21.9 million shares), GTBank (20.5 million shares), and Zenith Bank Plc (17.6 million shares) while GTBank (N589.2 million), Zenith Bank Plc (N379.9 million),and FBN Holding (N157.2) led by value.