Future of the Nigerian capital market after global economic meltdown will certainly form part of the discourse when the new Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh, and other stakeholders of the market meet in Lagos this week.

The forum which will have media men in attendance offers the SEC DG, her counterpart at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, market operators, registrars and issuing houses, and other stakeholders opportunity to thinker on the way forward.

Interestingly, the meeting is coming on the heels of just concluded World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos, Switzerland, where economic experts unanimously agreed that to improve the state of world after global meltdown governments and institutions must rethink, redesign, and rebuild.

Beside rethinking development, the focal point is where would big money managers invest? Stock markets are wobbly again. Global economic prospects are uncertain. And political climate of most emerging economies unpredictable. To domesticate these nagging issues, we may ask: Can foreign investors gamble their funds in our financial markets in spite current state of the economy?

Crash of Nigerian capital market which was attributed to massive funds outflow at the wake of the global financial crisis and the banking sector crisis have proved that our economy is not insular as it was wrongly thought; and for the economy to do well it must draw strength from foreign direct investments.
In view of the lack of full disclosure in the market, NSE status as private sector business (as opposed to a demutualised stock exchange) with all its imperfections, is the market the best place to invest among other emerging markets as alternative?

With what has happened to many investors as sad lesson, investment decision may not so much be because it delivers good returns, but because the market is stable and relatively easy to turn investments back into cash. To this extent, NSE may clearly be on the sidelines, if not on a blacklist of investment destinations.
“Investment heatmap” of fund managers do not favour economies full of uncertainties. Though they may look for “dislocated” troubled emerging markets where it is easy to exit but that would only add to the woes of investors when they dump their equities which is why some stock markets are rethinking how to curb activities of short term players otherwise called speculators in the market place.

Are the regulators, operators and other key stakeholders of the market rethinking, redesigning and working out any strategies of rebuilding Nigerian capital market to guarantee minimal risk of losses after market crash blamed on global financial meltdown (rightly or wrongly)? For a capital market that degenerated from yielding enviable returns to investors to delivering huge losses certainly there is need to take crucial steps to fix whatever identifiable problems holding it down. For stakeholders the most important challenge before the new DG is restoring investor confidence. They drew her attention to the factors that led to loss of confidence in the market.

According to the president, Progressive Shareholders’ Association of Nigeria, Mr. Boniface Okezie, if the new DG must restore investor confidence in the market, then she must be seen to be working towards protecting investors’ funds, and in doing this she has to revisit some of the outstanding issues that have weakened investors’ confidence in the market but which the Exchange has failed to address. For instance, cases of questionable reconstruction of shares by quoted companies.

Okezie who accused the trio of SEC, CBN and NSE of failure to protect investor’s funds recalled that shareholders of former African Continental Bank (ACB), one of the merged banks that came to be known as Spring Bank Plc, were short-changed by Spring Bank. According to him if new SEC DG begins by addressing some of the outstanding knotty issues that led to avoidable loss of funds by investors on the market, certainly such move will rekindle lost confidence and make investors to rush back to the market.

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Courtesy of Meristem Securities here are the results for the following companies released in the month of January:

7Up Bottling Com Plc Q2-09
Afromedia Plc FYE’09
Scoa Nigeria Plc FYE’09
Incar Plc Q3-09

Fidson Healthcare Plc FYE’09
Beco Petroleum Plc Q1-09
United Nig Textiles Plc Q3-09
African Paints Plc Q3-09
Costain West Africa Plc FYE’09

Tripple Gee & Company Plc Q3-09
Wema Bank Plc FYE’08
Wema Bank Plc FYE’09
Unic Insurance Plc Q3-09
Unic Insurance Plc Q2-09
Unic Insurance Plc Q1-09
Studio Press Nigeria Plc FYE’09

If you’ve ever invested a dime in the stock market, then you probably know the market is very reactive to investor’s emotions. But did you know that emotions are the very reason why so many investors don’t make what they want? By simply learning how to better control your emotions you can significantly impact the long term results you have in the market. Here are seven simple tips you can use to get control of your emotions when investing.

1) Create an Investment Plan and Document It

Writing down and documenting your investment plan is proven to help keep you focused and on track. In order to accomplish your investing goals, your plan needs to include specific investment goals, measurable targets and set time frames. You should look at your investment plan regularly to help keep you focused on your goals and avoid being distracted from short term events.

2) Do Contingency Planning

Always think through all of the different scenarios that could happen when it comes to your investment plan. Visualize and write out all of the positive and negative situations that could happen to your investments and create a plan for how you’ll respond. Think of it as an emergency plan so you’re always prepared no matter what happens. By doing this easy exercise, you can dramatically decrease or stop your emotional reaction to a situation because you’ll have had to think it through in advance.

3) Focus on Value

If you want to decrease the chance of your emotions running rampant, focus your efforts on value investing. By focusing on value investing, you’ll help to decrease the chances of getting suckered into “what everyone else is doing.”.Value investing is an effective way to get off the emotional roller coaster of investing and focus on your long term goals.

4) Set Limits and Stick to Them

Setting limits on your investments can significantly decrease your stress level and eliminate your emotional reaction to market news. By having limits for both buying and selling, you’ll make far fewer emotional decisions than other investors. This requires advance planning and discipline to not only create your buy and hold prices but also to initiate them when the market fluctuates. This disciplined action of buying and selling using pre-set limits will help to minimize your potential losses and insulate you from making bad decisions based upon emotion.

5) Invest on a Regular Basis

By investing regularly, you can create an investing routine where you make decisions based upon your goals rather than outside influences. This helps to reduce the need that many inexperienced investors have to “follow the masses” and overreact to news. By using your plan and investing regularly based upon your specific goals, it will also help to better insulate you from market volatility.

6) Set a Limit on the Number of Transactions

Often times, the more transactions you make the more likely you are to fall victim to the emotions of the market and lose sight of your long term goals. The more transactions you make that are short term, the more random your decisions become and the greater the risk. By limiting the number of transactions you do, you can lower your costs and focus your efforts on your long term trends.

7) Evaluate and Learn from Your Mistakes

Anytime you make any type of mistake, take time to consider what went wrong. Then write down this information and figure out how you can use it to your advantage next time. This one easy technique can help make your investing even more profitable because you’ll avoid making the same mistake twice.

With these 7 tips you’ll be able to map out your investment goals and keep your emotions in check so you can make your investment portfolio even more profitable.

A cross deal on the shares of First Inland Bank Plc on Tuesday revved up activity at the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE). With a total turnover of 502.526 million shares valued at N2.661 billion in 7,099 deals, Finbank accounted for 135.083 million shares worth N83.9 million in 163 deals, representing 26.9 percent of total turnover.

Yesterday’s turnover rose by 26.5 percent above preceding day’s turnover which stood at 369.476 million worth N1.606 billion in 7,183 deals. In spite the high turnover it recorded, the stock did not experience price movement as the share price remained stable at 63 kobo at which it had opened. It had gained 1 kobo previous day.

An impeccable source disclosed to Daily Sun that it should not be ruled out investors interested in buying key stakeholding were mopping up the shares of the bank whose share price has since fallen below book value. According to the stockbroker, the shares mop up would continue in the weeks ahead until the required volume is secured. However, it could not be ascertained whether the investors are likely to buy shares enough to become core investors with more than 50 percent stake.

If this happens, it will put to rest speculations that the eight rescued banks would be acquired by some powerful interests in hostile takeover. Only recently, it was reported in a national daily (not Daily Sun) that the Managing Director of one the rescued banks had been using fronts to mop up shares of the bank where the boss is charge, fuelling speculations that what concerned stakeholders of the industry feared had chanced.

Meanwhile, the bear rush on Tuesday threatened the long dominance of the bulls as the gap between share price gainers and losers narrowed down significantly. A total of 32 stocks gained prices compared to 31 that traded at losses, suggesting that the bears might soon overrun the trading floor.

However, market twin performance indicators of All-Share Index and market capitalisation edged up by 0.21 percent. Market capitalisation gained N11.46 billion to close at N5.325 trillion, up from N5.314 trillion while All-Share Index rose 47.86 basis points to close at 22,231. 66, up from 22,183.80 points.
The NSE-30 Index appreciated marginally closing at 885.72 up from 883.19 previo9us day. Apart from the NSE Insurance Index which dropped to 230.54 from 234.04 recorded the previous day, other two sectorial indices of NSE Food/Beverage Index and NSE Banking Index appreciated marginally closing at 557.96 and 363.64 up from 556.21 and 361.40 respectively, while NSE Oil/Gas remained stable at 299.26.

The Banking sub-sector remained the most active with investors grabbing a total of 339.390 million shares worth N2.024 billion in 3,932 deals. Finbank Plc was the active stock accounting for over 39.8 percent of the sub-sector’s turnover.
Top on the gainers’ table were Ashaka Cement and Cement Company of Northern Nigeria which tied at 65 kobo gain apiece to close at N13.67 and N14.15 per share while Cadbury Nigeria Plc gained 64 kobo to close at N13.44 per share.
On the loseres’ table, Alumaco, Julius Berger, and Glaxo Smithkline were chief losers dropping 138 kobo, 110 kobo, and 99 kobo in that order to close at N26.33, N28.50, and N22.01 per share respectively