By Patrick ONOJA investadvocate

Jan 10 2011 15.02 GMT

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Emmanuel Ikazoboh, Interim Administrator of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has advocated for the trading of Bonds on the Nations Exchange.

 

Ikazoboh made this call Monday January 10 2011 at a World Press Conference organised to appraise the performance of the Nigerian Capital Market (NCM) in year 2010.

 

He affirmed that an Equities Stock Exchange is not the best for any Capital Market. “Market activities in the review period, shows that the bulk of our transactions were in Equities; which accounted for 99.99 percent (99.99%) of our Turnover value; this shows clearly that our Stock Exchange is just an Equities Exchange; which is not the best” he affirmed.

 

Ikazoboh said that they have continually advocated that for the NSE to deepen and compete globally there should be a way of getting the Bonds traded in the Nigeria’s Capital Market (NCM).

 

“We have continuously said that if we want to deepen our Market and make our Stock Exchange the right Stock Exchange to compete with global Exchanges, we must find a way of getting the Bonds traded on our Market; in fact, we believe that this would ensure transparency and it would ensure that those Bonds are available to all and sundry in the Market place” he said.  

 

In reviewing the activity in the Secondary Market, Ikazoboh affirmed that Turnover on The Exchange closed the year at 93.335 billion shares valued at N797.551 billion.

 

The Interim Administrator said that while value traded rose by 16.31 percent (16.31%), volume traded dropped by 9.25% from the 102.85 billion valued at N685.72 recorded in year 2009.

 

“Volume and value traded had in 2009 dropped by 46.75% and 71.43% respectively. Average daily activity dropped from 414.73 million shares worth N2.8 billion in 2009 to 377.9 million shares valued at N3.2 billion in 2010” he said.

 

Ikazoboh said that the bulk of the transactions were in equities, which accounted for N797.54 billion or 99.99% of the Turnover value compared to N685.3 billion or 99.94% recorded in year 2009.

 

“Transactions in the State Government Bonds sector were very minimal accounting for only 13,000 units valued at N14.14 million. However, trading in the industrial Bond and Preference Stock sectors was inactive compared to N412.8 million traded in 2009” Ikazoboh said.

 

According to the NSE’s Interim Administrator, in 2010 just as in 2009, trading in Federal Government Bonds on The Exchange was inactive. Significantly, a Turnover of 13.8 billion units valued at N15.34 trillion in 137,080 deals was recorded in the Over-the-Counter (OTC) Market for FG Bonds; compared to 17.1 billion units valued at N10.44 billion in 78,248 deals recorded in that Market in 2009.