The Nigerian Stock Exchange has announced plans to put measures in place towards ensuring that there is increased depth in the market this year.

The measures, according to the Exchange, are aimed at driving further growth and patronage for the Nigerian capital market in 2012, thus boosting market indices that had records of losses last year.

As at the last trading day of 2011, the market capitalisation of the 186 first tier listed equities had fallen by 17.4 per cent, from N7.91tn recorded at the beginning of the year to N6.53tn on Friday, December 30, 2011.

The NSE All-Share Index was also down by 16.3 per cent, from 24,770.52 points in January to 20,730.63 on the last trading day of 2011.

The Chief Executive Officer, NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, noted that investors, especially foreign investors, were usually attracted to markets with depth and wide expanse of products, adding that for this reason, the NSE would increase the depth of activities.

According to him, as foreign investors account for over 70 per cent of the total volume of activities in the Nigerian capital market, it has become important to ensure that the market is deepened enough to attract them to stay in the market.

Disclosing that the NSE would not be involved in bringing up any new products in 2012, Onyema, however, said that it would concentrate on a further development of the products it already had on ground.

Onyema said, “This year, we are going to be involved in various activities and reform aimed at improving the market and attracting more investments, and there will be focused goals towards deepening the already existing products in the market.

“Although we have decided that we are not inaugurating any new product this year, we plan to develop the three major products we have in the market, which include the equities, bonds and the Exchange Traded Fund.”

He, however, disclosed that the NSE was committed to its goal of introducing five new products in five years by 2015, adding that it still planned to introduce Options and Futures to complement the three other existing asset classes.

According to Onyema, the NSE will focus on aggressive reactivation and revitalisation of the secondary bond market and undertake increased investor sensitisation and awareness programme on investing in the capital market.

“We believe that we should concentrate on building our bond market to ensure more participation, and so, we would revitalise the secondary bond market, which will provide investors with a wide range of choices regarding investment options and help stockbrokers tap into the opportunities inherent in trading in bonds,” he said.

He added that the NSE was also committed to ensuring the total recovery of the capital, stressing that it was putting in place a number of measures to drive the recovery process.

Source: Punch/Udeme Ekwere