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Investors stake N198bn on shares in two months

By BusinessNews Staff on March 13, 2014

Investors staked about N198 billion on 21.506 billion shares in 233,376 deals in the first two months of 2014, THISDAY checks have revealed.

Trading statistics for the two months collated by THISDAY showed that February accounted for the N99.35 billion invested in 12.291 billion shares in 104, 578 deals, while January recorded N98.749 billion spent on 9.215 billion shares in 128,798 deals.

A further analysis of the trading figures showed that the highest value of investment was recorded in the last week of February as investors invested N26.698 billion in 1.809 billion in 25,342 deals.

The second week of February followed with N25.134 billion invested in 1.918 billion shares in 25,346 deals. The third week of February accounted for N24.439 billion invested in 6.973 billion shares in 27,633 deals, while investors committed N23.1 billion in 1.591 billion shares in 26,257 deals in the first week of February.

In the month January, investors staked N22.44 billion on 1.722 billion in 29,600 deals in the second week. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) recorded N21.045 billion invested in 2.221 billion in 27,855 deals in the last week of January and N21.024 billion staked on 1.758 billion shares in 28,949 deals in the third week of January.

A total of N18.333 billion was invested in 1.722 billion shares in 25,016 deals in the third week while the first week of the January accounted for N15.907 billion invested in two billion shares in 17,378 deals.

Comparatively, the value of investments in the first two months show brighter prospect considering the fact that monthly average value of trading in 2013 was about N87 billion. Investors had staked N1.04 trillion on 106.5 billion shares in 2013.
However, market operators had said given the efforts to woo retail investors back, the market may record higher turnover this year.

Speaking on the prospects for 2014, the Chief Executive Officer of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, had said the Exchange’s primary focus will be on growing the capital market in preparation for achieving emerging market status.

“The NSE will facilitate access to and participation in the market; increase our footprint on the continent; and deploy a risk framework to safe-guard the market venue,” he said.

Onyema noted that as countries in developed markets emerge from their economic troubles, the Nigerian capital market, and indeed our business, will be impacted by shifts in investor demand.

“Achieving competitiveness and enhancing the NSE’s value proposition are important to our success in 2014, however safe-guarding against potential shocks, both local and international, and maintaining a high level of attractiveness with a strong regulatory framework, are equally critical to the NSE,” the NSE boss said.

[This Day]

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