By Chinwendu Obienyi

Despite the bearish sentiments in Nigeria’s stock market, ten stockbroking firms earned a total of N541.21 billion from fees and commission charges procured from volume of shares traded in the first half (H1) of 2021.

Data obtained from the Broker Performance report which was released by the Nigerian Exchange Group Limited (NGX) for H1 2021 yesterday, revealed that the volume of shares traded during the period under review stood at 39.34 billion units valued at N541.21 billion.

This meant that the volume of shares traded in the review period represented 42.78 per cent of the total trades registered while in terms of value, it accounted for 52.11 per cent of the total trades.

The ten firms include; Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers, Investment One, Cardinalstone Securities, Rencap Securities and Absa Securities. Others include Meristem Stockbrokers, FBN Quest Securities, WSTC Securities and Apel Asset.

Analysis done by Daily Sun revealed that the N541.21 billion generated by the firms represents a decline compared with N597.44 billion and N772.15 billion recorded in H1 2020 and H1 2019 respectively.

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Reacting to the development, Corporate Brokerage analyst at CSL Stockbrokers limited, Richard Akinmoladun, said, “if you look at the market, some of the things that drive the market are no longer there most especially the foreign portfolio investors as well as PFAs in the market. The exchange rate is an issue for the FPIs as they cannot move their money while the PFAs are not comfortable with the returns they are getting from the market”.

Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers led the list, with trades valued at N112.09 billion, having led the same category in the corresponding periods of 2019 and 2020.

The firm accounted for 10.79 per cent of the total value of traded stocks in the half-year period while Investment One followed in second place with trade valued at N72.41 billion, representing 6.97 per cent of the total recorded trades.

Cardinalstone Securities, having led the list by volume, stood third by value with trades in stocks valued at N70.65 billion, 6.8 per cent of the total trades, Rencap Securities also recorded trades in stocks valued at N65.49 billion, while EFG Hermes followed with N46.22 billion.

Others include Absa Securities (N43.16 billion), Meristem Stockbrokers (N42.64 billion), FBN Quest Securities (N33.33 billion), WSTC Securities (N29.48 billion), and Apel Asset (N25.76 billion).