NSE’ll work with stakeholders to sustain growth trajectory – Onyema

By EMEKA EJERE

The Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Stock exchange (NSE), Mr. Oscar Onyema, has expressed delight that the year 2020 has started on a good note, with the NSE All Share Index 9ASI), recording a 9.41% improvement year-to-date as at January 10.

Onyema spoke on Monday at the NSE Event Centre in Lagos, while presenting the key performance of the Exchange in 2019 and giving a projection for the market in the year2020.

He stated that NSE intends to work closely with its stakeholders to sustain the growth trajectory.

Mr. Onyema said as African champions, “we will maintain momentum in executing the NSE’s 2018 – 2021 Corporate Strategy in our efforts to elevate the prominence of Africa’s global financial markets.”

He noted that in its aspiration to become a more agile and demutualized exchange, and pursuant to the SEC’s ‘No Objection’ rule, the Exchange will proceed to next steps which include seeking formal approval from its members on demutualization scheme.

“While keeping an eye on the strategic intent post-demutualization, the Exchange commits to leveraging its vast network of stakeholders, in addition to developing new strategic partnerships to deliver better products and services to the investing public,” Onyema said.

In his 2019 market recap, Mr. Onyema noted that the Nigerian capital market mirrored the performance of the larger economy, which, he said, continued its moderate path of recovery, growing by 2.28% (Q3’19).

He said the Nigerian bourse witnessed the impact of various factors including: a weak macroeconomic landscape; fiscal and monetary policy direction; underwhelming trends in Foreign Portfolio Investments; concerns around the statbility of the naira and moderate corporate earnings.

According to Onyema, while these factors led to a negative performance in the equity market during the year, Nigeria’s fixed income market “performed exceptionally well, reflecting a flight to safety.”

Themed 2019 Market Recap and Outlook for 2020, the event had in attendance the stockbroking community, analysts, media and other stakeholders, a number of whom made contributions by ways of questions and comments.