Chinwendu Obienyi
President Muhammadu Buhari’s assignment of portfolio to 43 ministers yesterday appeared to be the key stroke that Nigeria’s stock market, needed to chalk up a gain of N120 billion as investors’ sentiment grew strong.
This was even as market analysts called on the newly constituted cabinet to focus on fiscal economy and allow the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) concentrate on its four monetary policy mandates.
Commenting on the gains at the Exchange, Professor of Economics, Nonso Obiliki, lauded efforts of the government in constituting the cabinet but noted that the economy cannot grow holistically without macroeconomic stability.
He said: “We hope that the debate on the cabinet will be how it will change the structure of the Nigerian export stuff. it is not something that can be done by the CBN. Rather, these are things that have to be done by the government and we hope that the debate will be on how the CBN will be allowed to focus on its core mandates. we should not forget that the CBN has a core mandate of monetary stability and every time it gets distracted by trying to do something in the right space or in the textile space, it loses focus on its core mandates and that is something that is very dangerous.
“If you have macroeconomic stability, then it does not matter what else you do, the economy can grow. we hope that the cabinet would focus on fiscal economy of this nation and allow the CBN focus on its mandate. what can they do? focus more on improving productivity, solving infrastructure and security challenges”.
On his part, Head, Research at FSL Securities, Victor Chiazor, said that there is a lot of work to be done in revamping the economy and added that the new cabinet should focus on what will bring confidence back to investors. “Right now, investors’ confidence is quite very weak. They should also focus on how to bring more companies to list on the NSE which will increase the market and bring some level of variety to the investors who are used to buying the same stocks. They have their jobs cut out for them and so they might work very hard to avert recession because that would be good for the economy as well as the capital market”, Chiazor said.
At the close of transactions on Wednesday, the All Share Index (ASI) advanced 1.09 per cent to 27,352.94 points following price appreciation in the shares of MTNN, Nestle and ETI.