Invest Data Consulting Ltd

Like a dream come true, Nigeria achieved the National Assembly’s plan for a January-December budget cycle, with President Muhammadu Buhari signing the 2020 Appropriation Bill passed into law for the first time since the return of the country to democracy in 1999. Senate President Ahmed Lawan first mooted the idea of returning the nation to the January-December cycle soon after he was elected on July 31, 2019. Although a budget of N10.33tr was laid before a joint session of the National Assembly on October, N10.59tr was signed into law on Tuesday by President Buhari. This was however lower than the N10.729tr recommended by the Senate during the October 3, 2019 passage of Nigeria’s 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP). The budget, however, seems to have ignored criticisms that the spending plan represents an attempt by the federal government to build castles in the air, in the words of analysts at the investment banking group- Afrinv...

• Sustaining ongoing Reforms Key To Enhancing Confidence PriceWaterhouseCoopers, an international firm of external auditors, consultants and advisors, last week hinted of a dire need to significantly develop and increase the depth of the Nigerian capital market, measured as a percentage of its gross domestic products (GDP). In the January 22, 2018 edition of its publication Nigeria Economic Alert, titled “External Debt Issuance: Towards Capital Market Development,” co-authored by Andrew S. Nevin (PhD) and Adedayo Akinbiyi, PwC noted that Nigeria’s capital market is just 11% of its GDP , which is significantly below the world average of 98.5% in 2016, outperforming fellow African nation- Egypt’s 9%. According to the report, Nigeria’s came far behind South Africa’s capital market at 334% of its GDP; which was far better than 136% for India; 63% for China; and Russia’s 49%. Responding to a mail by Investdata at the weekend, Dr. Nevin explained further that in terms of total...

Market Update for January 15 It was another interesting trading session on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday. Not only was it mixed to start the week, the session was action-packed until the very last minute, when it turned from deep red to green as closing gong sounded, with the composite NSE All-Share index very firm, just as the technicals finished positive. Market breadth was however flat to reverse the previous d ay’s negative close arising from bouts of profit taking and panic selling by investors and traders. The session started with the index going south pre-opening, a situation that was sustained during the mid-morning as the benchmark index tested a low of 42,262.82 before starting a rebound that reduced the loss momentum at midday. It finally crossed to the green side in the afternoon session to retrace up, touching intraday highs of 43,119.44 basis points, and stayed ramped up all the way into the close. The recovery was supported appreciation in the sh...

2017 STOCK MARKET REVIEW AND OUTLOOK FOR 2018 The chart above highlights the monthly changes in the NSE ASI for 2017, with up months represented by green and down periods, red. January and February were down while March to July were up markets, while there were corrections in August and September before the rebound in October, November and December on highly volatile months and days to close the year in green. The year 2017 was remarkable for bull ascendency as predicted by Investdata during its annual Traders and Investors Summit tagged INVEST 2017, which held on December 3, 2016, after putting into consideration the preceding three straight years of down market induced by multiples of factors. These included the crisis of market confidence, the fact that Nigeria was deep into economic recession, even as politicians were busy passing the bulk instead of fashioning a blue-print to give the economy some form of direction, which was made worse by the delay in appointin...