2017: UNFORGETTABLE FOR NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE

It looks like for the Nigerian stock exchange, the financial year to December 2017 is going to be unforgettable for a long while.

Yes, humans lick open wounds for a long time and remember with bitterness he or she who inflicted it. Much the same way, record achievements linger in every memory particularly those are definitely milestones.

For the NSE Nigeria, 2017 had turned out to be so good that is will take a long while to surpass it and so leave it in the dustbin of history.

In 2017, it is no more news that the exchange was ranked 3rd best performing stock exchange in the world by the CNN. Now it has become the signature tune of the exchange and even the Buhari administration although CNN is not known for being a ranking agency of exchanges.

Even then, the facts that emerged from 2017 with the exchange continue to tell a tale of a year that will be very hard to forget.

Hence, we hear, the 57th Annual General Meeting of the exchange held at its headquarters in Custom Street, Lagos was a quickie of sorts: It was over in less than an hour and Henates missed it by more than a hour because of another engagement.

It was over so fast because there were issues at stake about the year, from both the Council Chairman's and the CEO's reports. Instead, the figures reeled out were almost mind blowing.

The exchange's core turnover more than doubled to N5.81bn from 2016's N2.64bn (up 122.1%) and indeed, total income growth only slowed to 79.7% to N9.57bn all because growth in Other income was only 34.1% to N2.43bn and in profit from equity investment was 45.8% to N1.267bn.

Then, in almost superlative fashion, the income surplus recorded sprang 467.8% from 2016's N803.77m deficit, to N2.548bn.

This was as total expenses grew by only 9.40% to N5.755bn driven mainly by easily absorbable 32.1% rise in personnel cost to N2.866bn and 18.8% increase in operating expenses to N2.324bn.

Of course, because it is not yet a public limited liability company quoted on any exchange including its own, there are no shareholders yet who will smile to the bank in view of this bountiful harvest from 2017 operations.

But, then stakeholders have more than the above reasons to smile too. The total value of the market (aka Market capitalisation) grew by 41.59% in 2017 in tow with 43% rise in the All share index.

Talk of depth, 2017 came up with numerous new listings: 41 bonds, 19 equities, 5 Exchange traded funds and 15 memorandum listings.

Not bad at all, and this is likely to be the best recovery year since the market crashed, first time ever, in 2008.

It was also in 2017, according to facts reeled by the NSE top shots, that listed securities rose to 312 from 278; that 175 financial literacy programmes were organised by the NSE in addition to 8 training programmes and N6.4m was paid to settle 17 claims from the Investor Protection Fund.

It was also the year new SEC approved amendments were made to make market rules and regulations more effective and xGen and SMARTS were introduced as new platforms to monitor market and members performance.

It was also the year that provided back glance to turbulent 2016 and came up with new vision for 2018 to 2021.

Now, the real task is how to match 2017 and surpass it to make it forgettable because only those who don't progress get stuck in memories of the past.