Edition 3 lands on a week where the numbers themselves became the headline. On Monday, March 16, the All-Share Index crossed 200,000 points for the first time in the history of the Nigerian Exchange. That sentence deserves to be read slowly. Not a forecast, not a projection from an analyst note, but a real market close, on real money, in a country that has spent years being told its best days were perpetually on their way. On Monday, they arrived, at least in this chapter, and the record is written.
Yet the more you look at what is underneath this rally, the more you see that it is not merely momentum chasing yield. A significant regulatory announcement, the continued retreat of inflation from its painful peak, and the steadying of the naira are beginning to form something that markets rarely reward immediately but always reward eventually: a coherent story. For the diaspora professional wiring money home from Calgary or London, and for the first-time investor in Aba deciding whether equities are worth the risk, this edition is about more than a number on a screen. It is about what that number means in context.
Market Wrap — The Numbers That Matter
The week ending March 13 saw the All-Share Index add 0.73 percent to close at 198,407.30 points, with market capitalisation rising to ₦127.36 trillion from ₦126.44 trillion the prior week. Investors gained roughly ₦924 billion in market value across those five sessions, and gains in three of five trading days reflected a market consolidating its extraordinary run rather than losing confidence in it. Total turnover came in at approximately 3.321 billion shares worth ₦164.845 billion across 318,907 deals, down from 3.695 billion shares and ₦177.687 billion the previous week. The moderation in volume tells a simple story: the big money is staying but becoming more deliberate about what it buys and at what price. The Financial Services sector led by volume, accounting for 2.179 billion shares, confirming that banking names continue to anchor investor interest even as selectivity increases. Oil and gas was the standout sector for performance, with Conoil surging 20.95 percent and Aradel Holdings adding 3.05 percent, while the Industrial Goods Index climbed 5.73 percent on the week, lifted by the cement majors. On the losing side, SCOA Nigeria shed 34.1 percent, Fortis Global Insurance fell 20.8 percent, and Sovereign Trust Insurance dropped 20.7 percent, a reminder that the Nigerian market remains merciless with names that disappoint or attract concentrated selling pressure.
Then the week that followed delivered history. On Monday March 16, the ASI rose 1.55 percent to close at 201,474.89 points, crossing 200,000 for the first time and pushing the year-to-date return to 29.47 percent. Market capitalisation reached ₦129.33 trillion. Thirty-eight stocks closed higher against 30 decliners, a broad advance rather than a narrow spike. Zenith Bank led by value with ₦5.96 billion changing hands in a single session, and Sovereign Trust Insurance recorded the highest volume at 72.56 million shares. NGX Group CEO Temi Popoola noted that improving corporate fundamentals and growing local investor participation are reinforcing the market’s role as a vehicle for long-term wealth creation. For a market that opened January at roughly 165,000 points, the move to 201,000 in ten weeks is not an accident. It is a verdict.
“201,474.89 points. The All-Share Index crossed 200,000 for the first time in its history on Monday, and every investor who stayed when the narrative was uncertain is entitled to feel something close to vindication.”
The Big Story
On March 16, the Central Securities Clearing System, the settlement arm of the Nigerian Exchange Group, announced that Nigeria’s capital market will transition to a T+1 settlement cycle from May 29, 2026. In plain terms, this means that when you buy or sell shares on the NGX, your cash and securities will move within one business day rather than the current two. It may sound like a technical footnote buried in a notice to market operators. It is not. Settlement speed is one of the most consequential but least discussed dimensions of market quality, and Nigeria has now signalled its intention to match the pace of the world’s most competitive markets while the index is simultaneously breaking records. The timing is no coincidence. It is the posture of a market that believes in what it is building.
In November 2025, Nigeria migrated from a T+3 to a T+2 settlement cycle. That alone was a meaningful upgrade. The announcement of T+1 by May 2026 means the market will have moved through two complete improvements to its post-trade infrastructure in under seven months, each one compressing the window between when a trade happens and when ownership and cash formally change hands. For retail investors this means faster access to the proceeds of any sale, freeing capital for reinvestment more quickly. For institutional players and foreign portfolio managers it means reduced counterparty exposure and a shorter period during which adverse price moves can create unexpected risk between trade and settlement. The CSCS has been explicit that this forms part of a phased journey that could eventually lead to same-day settlement, a goal only a handful of the world’s most advanced markets have achieved.
What should investors make of this? For the diaspora reader or the institutional allocator deciding how much Africa belongs in a portfolio, infrastructure reforms of this kind are among the most durable reasons to stay in a market through volatility. Headline index moves attract capital. The regulatory architecture keeps it. Nigeria went from a market where settlement took three days and carried meaningful systemic risk, to one accelerating toward one-day completion in under a year. SEC Director-General Emomotimi Agama has described faster settlement as a defining feature of competitive global markets. On this measure at least, the direction is unmistakably right, and the pace of execution is beginning to close the gap between Nigeria’s ambition and its infrastructure reality.
The T+1 announcement did not arrive in isolation. On March 4, the Central Bank confirmed that Nigeria’s gold holdings have reached $3.5 billion, following the delivery of locally sourced gold refined to London Bullion Market Association Good Delivery standards into its foreign reserves. The gold was mined within Nigeria, aggregated through the National Gold Purchase Programme by the Solid Minerals Development Fund, and crucially, acquired in naira at LBMA-linked prices. That last detail matters enormously: the CBN added a globally recognised reserve asset to its balance sheet without spending a single dollar of its hard-earned foreign currency holdings. For foreign investors and importers already watching the naira’s narrowing trading band, a reserve base that is growing in both size and quality without depleting FX buffers is precisely the kind of signal that makes currency risk feel more manageable. Taken together, faster settlement, a strengthening reserve position, and a steadier naira are not three separate stories. They are one story about a country that is, quietly and methodically, building the kind of institutional credibility that serious long-term capital demands before it commits.
Nigeria’s Money — The Informal Economy Watch
While the NGX was crossing 200,000 points, a quieter but equally significant milestone was being counted elsewhere. M-KOPA, the digital credit and device financing platform, has now extended approximately $170 million, roughly ₦230 billion, in credit to more than one million customers in Nigeria, making Nigeria its fastest-growing market globally. The customers being reached are not the salaried middle class who already have banking relationships and credit histories. They are everyday earners in Nigeria’s informal economy, workers with irregular income patterns, limited collateral, and no formal credit file, precisely the population that traditional banks have historically passed over. For these borrowers, access to structured credit is not a lifestyle upgrade. It is often the difference between a business surviving a bad month and closing permanently.
What makes this development worth Harmattan’s attention is not the dollar figure alone but the direction it points. Nigeria’s formal financial inclusion rate rose from 56 percent in 2020 to 64 percent in 2023, according to the most recent EFInA Access to Finance survey, yet roughly 26 percent of adult Nigerians remain entirely excluded from formal financial services, with exclusion running as high as 47 percent in parts of the North West. The gap between the index record in Lagos and the cash economy in Kano or Maiduguri remains vast. But the M-KOPA numbers are a signal that the gap is being approached from both directions at once: markets climbing to meet a modernising financial infrastructure, and fintech credit quietly building the credit histories, savings habits, and financial confidence that will one day bring millions of Nigerians through the door of the formal economy, including, eventually, the equities market itself. The SEC is reinforcing that pipeline from the other end. Speaking at a financial literacy forum in Lagos on Tuesday, the commission disclosed that it has investigated and shut down more than 400 fraudulent investment schemes over the past three years, with prosecutions underway and new public reporting tools launched to catch illegal operators faster. Every Ponzi scheme that the SEC closes is a potential investor who keeps their capital, and potentially finds their way to a registered product instead. Protecting savings and building investors are, in the end, the same mission.
Africa Watch
While Nigeria celebrates a historic threshold, the continent’s most dramatic equity story in 2026 is unfolding in Accra. Ghana’s GSE Composite Index has surged over 75 percent year-to-date, crossing the 15,000-point mark for the first time in its history on March 10, while the GSE Financial Stocks Index has risen more than 110 percent since January. The driver is a sweeping re-rating of Ghanaian banks that absorbed severe losses during the country’s domestic debt exchange and are now being repriced as the economy stabilises under IMF-backed reforms and a more stable cedi. Individual stocks have posted extraordinary moves: SIC Insurance is up roughly 480 percent year-to-date, Access Bank Ghana has risen nearly 190 percent, and GCB Bank has added more than 158 percent. For regional investors, the simultaneous bull markets in Lagos and Accra, two of West Africa’s largest economies navigating reform from very different starting points, are a reminder that disciplined patience inside Africa’s frontier markets can still deliver returns that few other asset classes can match, and that the continent rewards those who can hold through the difficult chapter to reach the next one.
What to Watch
Two signals deserve close attention in the week ahead. The first is whether the Nigerian market consolidates around the 200,000-point level or experiences profit taking of the kind that has briefly cooled this rally at previous milestones. At 29.47 percent year-to-date and ₦129.33 trillion in market capitalisation, valuations have stretched, and any surprise in the next inflation data release or a fresh bout of naira weakness would give sellers a reason to act. The second is the early response of market participants to the T+1 settlement announcement. Watch specifically for CSCS guidance on technical readiness requirements and whether brokers and custodians begin to communicate transition plans publicly. Separately, Oando has signalled a possible delay in filing its 2025 audited results due to software integration issues, a detail worth tracking as earnings season approaches, given that audited accounts are the foundation on which confident investment decisions are built.
The 200,000 mark will age into a footnote in the long record of this market. What matters is what gets built on the other side of it. Harmattan will be watching.
Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.
— Bestman
Founder, Harmattan
harmattanintel@outlook.com | harmattanintel.com