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By Chukwuma Umeorah
Nigerian Exchange Group of Companies and its partners, the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) Initiative, United Nations (UN) Women, United Nations Global Compact and International Finance Corporation (IFC) have called on private and public sector stakeholders to close the gender gap by creating more opportunities for women to thrive.
The call was made at the 2023 International Women’s Day symposium tagged “Embrace Equity: Setting the Standard for a Sustainable Future” which brought together stakeholders across sectors to chart the cause for driving sustainable outcomes for women and men to thrive.
In achieving this, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX Group), Oscar Onyema stated that the Group is committed to prioritizing equity, diversity and inclusion in its workplace.
“Gender equity is an ongoing journey that requires sustained efforts and commitment from all of us. We must commit to continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible, embrace new ideas to challenge ourselves and each other for a more equitable and sustainable future.”
Citing the progress made on NGX’s collaboration with IFC on the Nigeria2Equal Initiative, the CEO of Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) Temi Popoola, spoke about the Exchange’s strides in promoting diversity and inclusion in the capital market.
He stated that, “With Nigeria2Equal, we have been able to galvanize private sector action to close the gender gap, the most recent program of which is the launch of the Gender-Based Violence and Harassment in Workplaces research.”
Meanwhile investors on the Nigerian stock market at the end of Thursday’s trading session gained over of N11.438 billion driving the market capitalization to N30.409 trillion.
A total of 311.476 million units of shares corresponding to a market value of N3.093 billion were exchanged in 3,627 deals. Compared with the previous NGX trading day, the data shows a 104 per cent improvement in volume, 13 per cent decline in turnover, but 10 per cent improvement in deals. Similarly, the benchmark NGX All-Share Index (ASI) inched up 21.00 basis points or 0.04 per cent to close at 55,822.14 from an opening value of 55,801.14 basis points. This represents a 1-week gain of 0.27 per cent, a 4-week gain of 2.69 per cent, and an overall year-to-date (ytd) gain of 8.92 per cent.
Market breadth was negative with 12 stocks gaining while 19 stocks depreciated. Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc emerged the best performing stock for the day with its value appreciating by 8.66 per cent closing at N1.38 per share followed by ROYALEX which gained 5.63 per cent closing at N0.75 per share. CHAMPION also gained 4.60 per cent and closed the day at N5.00 per share.
On the losing side, the value of NCR and CONOIL depreciated by 9.93 per cent each closing at N2.63 and N42.20 per share respectively. They were closely followed by UPL which went down by 9.00 per cent, closing at N1.82 per share.
