Market News

Nigerian stocks’ strong start to the year has helped them recover the market value wiped out by a sharp naira devaluation two years ago.

The West African nation’s benchmark index surged 31 per cent this year, delivering the world’s second best dollar returns. The rally far outpaces the 11 per cent gain in the broader emerging-market index and the 6.4 per cent advance in a gauge of frontier-market stocks.

The stellar run has added $21 billion in market value, lifting capitalisation to about $84 billion, roughly 58 per cent higher than in January 2024, just before a sharp naira devaluation more than halved the dollar value of companies listed on the Lagos exchange. The devaluation was part of President Bola Tinubu’s push to unify and liberalise the foreign-exchange market and bring in investment.

Companies whose valuations were battered by the naira’s fall have since shored up their balance sheets and returned to profitability, making them more attractive to investors, said Olabode Williams, an analyst at SBG Securities Ltd., a unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd. A lot of investors have started pricing in growth, he added.

Stock gains have also been underpinned by a firmer naira, now the world’s second-best performing currency this year of those tracked by Bloomberg with a more than seven per cent advance against the dollar.

Foreign participation is rebounding in tandem. Non-Nigerian trading in local equities surged to a 19-year high in 2025, according to data from the Nigerian Exchange Group. Transactions by foreign investors more than tripled to 2.65 trillion naira ($1.97 billion) from 852 billion naira a year earlier — the strongest level since 2007 and the highest combined inflows and outflows over the period.

CSL Stockbrokers Ltd., a unit of FCMB Group Plc, expects Nigeria’s stock market to surpass $100 billion this year, driven by the anticipated listings of the 650,000-barrel-a-day Dangote Refinery and fertilizer plant — both controlled by Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote, analyst Gloria Fadipe said in a phone interview. “We project that base case, we can get up to 34.1 per cent capital gains this year if the listings come to pass,” she said.