Branches of Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, across the country have reported a 36.7 percent depeciation in trading activities at N11.26 billion when compared with N17 billion in 2014.
Amongst all 13 branches, the Abuja office was the most active, trading approximately 560 million shares valued at N4.7 billion in 15,394 deals, and was followed by Kaduna with 274.3 million units of shares traded valued at N1.9 billion in 8,936 deals while the Ibadan Office emerged the third most active office with 221.0 million units valued at N1.6 billion and traded in 10,506 deals.
Ilorin traded a total of 147.9 million units worth N1.2 billion in 4700 deals, Uyo sold 66.9 million units of shares at N431.9 million while Kano transacted 46.1 million shares worth N904.9 million.
Benin, and Onitsha transacted, 36.9 million shares and 23.4 million shares valued at N261.9 and N174.8 million respectively, while Port Harcourt transacted in 277 deals 7.7 million shares worth N48.2 million.
However, the Abeokuta, Bauchi, Owerri and Yola branches recorded no transactions during the 2015 period.
The NSE held the zonal annual general meeting (AGM) of its Lagos/Ibadan branch in Lagos on Friday to receive and consider report on the operations of the branch Exchanges for 2015 and re-elect members of its branch council.
According to the report, the downward spiral in trading activity in the branch office was primarily attributed to the economic slowdown across the country, culminating in the decline in key macroeconomic and stock market variables.
The report raised concerns on the observed unwillingness of stockbroking firms to trade from branch offices even when there were evidences of the engagement of resident stockbrokers in those branch offices.
Concerns on the observed knowledge gap in understanding of the Exchange Traded Products (ETP’s) at the off site locations were also raised, which resulted in very low transactions in all the branch offices.
At the AGM, the NSE’s Lagos/Ibadan Branch Council which covers Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan and Ilorin branch offices, unanimously re-elected Golden Securities Limited and Nigerian Stockbrokers Limited, represented by Mr. Emmanuel Ortswen and Mr. Bosun Adekoya respectively, as members of the Lagos/Ibadan Zonal Branch Council, Worldstage reports.
