The Nigerian Exchange has climbed to the top as number one exchange in Africa in the first two months of 2024, investors now enjoy 33.70 per cent returns on investors.
The NGX made disclosed that the local bourse was rated as the best-performing in Africa ahead of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Egyptian Exchange (EGX 30) Index and The Ghana Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
NGX cams up as world’s best-performing stock market in the first three weeks of 2024, beating Argentina, which came second in early January.
The market cap of listed equities had opened the year at N40.917tn and closed February at N54.707tn. Between January and February, the market capitalisation increased by N13.79tn.
Comparably, the benchmark index of the NGX, the All-Share Index, concluded February trading at 99,980.30 points, up 25,206.53 basis points, or 33.71 percent, from its opening trading level of 74,773.77 points this year.
The remarkable accomplishment of the equity market in the first two months of this year was achieved in spite of various local macroeconomic obstacles, global uncertainties, and rising levels of insecurity, inflation, and unstable foreign exchange.
The market slowed in February as the bears made their appearance, after being bullish in January and consistently producing N1 trillion cap businesses.
The bearish has been sustained amid lacklustre corporate earnings as well as better yields in the fixed-income market.
The Chief Executive Officer of Wyoming Capital and Partners, Tajudeen Olayinka, reacted to the market performance, stating the stock market was in a repricing mode because of an interest rate hike and continued issuances of one-year Treasury bills at a high effective yield of over 20 per cent.
“So, we are witnessing a shift to the fixed-income market,” he said.
Rotimi Olubi, The Managing Director of ARM Securities Limited, stated that the high fixed-income yield was driving traction from the equities market to the fixed-income market.
“We expect this to be sustained in the short term given the recent 400 basis points hike in interest rate.
“However, this presents an opportunity for investors to enter into the equities market at a cheaper price to lock in on dividend payments in the coming months.”
The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria had hiked the benchmark interest rate to 22.75 per cent recently.
