Edition 25 | Wednesday 19 August 2026
Something quiet happened on Customs Street on Tuesday. Volume collapsed by more than two thirds, and the index fell anyway. A market falling on heavy volume is a contest. A market falling on almost no volume is a room people have left. The money did not evaporate. It moved. And the week before, the Central Bank told every Nigerian with a bank account exactly where it had gone.
Market Wrap
The All-Share Index closed Tuesday 18 August at 241,611.23, down 0.35 per cent, with capitalisation at ₦155.97 trillion after a fall of ₦544.5 billion. Year to date the market still holds 55.26 per cent. It was the sixth consecutive losing session. Across Harmattan’s Tuesday to Tuesday week it is down 2.07 per cent, capitalisation lighter by ₦3.285 trillion (Harmattan arithmetic). The exchange’s own week to date figure of 0.42 per cent differs because the NGX week runs Monday to Friday.
Volume fell 67.7 per cent to 429.83 million shares on turnover of ₦27.48 billion, deals dropped 21.6 per cent to 35,683, and the average value per deal rose from roughly ₦504,000 to roughly ₦770,000 (Harmattan arithmetic). Fewer people traded, and those who did traded bigger. First HoldCo was the heaviest drag, down 5.71 per cent to ₦132.00, absorbing ₦2.23 billion of turnover alone, 8.1 per cent of the market’s entire value in one counter. Haldane McCall led gainers at 9.97 per cent, ahead of Veritas Kapital Assurance at 7.09 and Tantalizer at 5.26. Red Star Express led losers at the full 10 per cent, with Trans-Nationwide Express at 9.94 and Meyer at 9.88. All five worst clustered at the floor. One-sided pressure, not two-way trade.
Volume fell 67.7 per cent on Tuesday and the index still declined. Nigerian equities did not lose an argument this week. They lost an audience.
Dollar figures use the NFEM close of ₦1,349.54 on Monday 17 August, as no Tuesday fixing had been published at the time of writing. At that rate the market is worth roughly $115.57 billion (Harmattan arithmetic). The naira strengthened while equities fell, so a diaspora holder’s loss in $ is smaller than in ₦.
The Big Story
On 12 August the Central Bank issued a circular signed by Okey Umeano, Acting Director of the Financial Markets Department, effective immediately. Participation in Open Market Operations is now open to all eligible investors through deposit money banks, with individuals, corporates and non-bank financial institutions named specifically. Open Market Operations drain money from the banking system; Treasury bills finance government spending. One is monetary plumbing, the other fiscal funding. In October 2019 the Central Bank shut individuals and non-bank corporates out of OMO so their money would go instead to the real economy and the equity market. This circular lets them back in.
The first auction under the framework showed what the plumbing pays. Against ₦600 billion offered across 103-day and 138-day bills, the bank took ₦4.93 trillion in bids and allotted about ₦2.60 trillion. The 138-day paper drew ₦3.658 trillion for a ₦300 billion offer, clearing at 20.01 per cent for a true yield of 21.66 per cent, while the shorter 103-day bill cleared higher at 20.39 per cent. Treasury bills cleared their one-year paper at 17.59 per cent a day earlier, leaving the central bank paying three and a half to four percentage points more than the government.
Set that beside a household. Headline inflation is 15.43 per cent. A Nigerian with a bank account can in principle hold paper yielding above 20 per cent with no credit risk worth naming, a real return of about five percentage points. That is the best offer most Nigerian savers have ever had, and every competing claim on their money must now beat it: the cooperative contribution, the mutual fund, the shop that needs restocking. Blue chip market value has been reported down ₦3.7 trillion, with analysts naming this policy alongside a pricing rule change since postponed. Brokers counter that a wider bidding pool should compress yields over time, and that equities still deliver appreciation and dividends fixed paper cannot.
The harder question is narrower. Access runs through deposit money banks, so the bank is the gatekeeper. Whether open to individuals means anything will be settled by minimum ticket sizes, by fees, and by whether a branch officer ever mentions it. None of that is in the circular. Meanwhile the 30-year United States Treasury yield reached 5.31 per cent on Monday, its highest since 2007. The textbook consequence for a frontier market is capital flight and a weaker currency. It did not happen. The naira closed at ₦1,349.54, its strongest since April, helped by a $252.1 million intervention, while domestic paper cleared above 20 per cent. Nigeria did not lose capital this week. It paid to keep it, and the equity market is where that bill landed.
Nigeria’s Money
While Abuja opened a window for Nigerian savers, a very different Nigerian institution was making arrangements elsewhere. Standard Bank Group is in talks to buy a stake in OPay ahead of a possible listing in New York, Bloomberg reported. The talks are early and may not proceed. Founded in 2018, OPay serves up to 50 million users, holds mobile money operator and microfinance bank licences in Nigeria, and turned profitable last year as transaction value more than doubled to $358 billion. A listing is discussed at around $4 billion.
Sit with the geography. The company processing the daily economic life of Nigeria’s informal sector, the trader’s transfer, the okada fare, the agent float in a roadside kiosk, will sell shares in itself in New York rather than Lagos. The Nigerians who generated that $358 billion may buy central bank paper at their branch this month and cannot buy a share of OPay at any price. Formal markets deepen for state instruments while informal equity is priced abroad. Customs Street has not yet given a company of that profile a reason to point homeward.
Africa Watch
Old Mutual resumed trading on Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Stock Exchange on 12 August after six years of suspension, closing its debut at 78.17 US cents on just 46,402 shares. The same company’s primary listing in Johannesburg turned over roughly 19.9 million shares that session. Effective 13 August the exchange began measuring cross-listed issuers on global issued share capital rather than the local register, lifting Old Mutual’s reported capitalisation above $3 billion. The figure on the board rose enormously. The order book did not. Headline capitalisation and real liquidity are different facts, and only one tells you whether you can sell.
What to Watch
Access Holdings disclosed on 17 August a potential delay to its interim audited results for the half year ended 30 June, with the exchange approving an extension to 30 September subject to central bank approval. Watch that date. It is the first hard deadline any tier one lender has attached to this reporting season, and it gives the continuing silence from GTCO and Zenith a shape it did not have. Watch, second, the next Open Market Operations auction. If a wider pool of bidders compresses that 20 per cent clearing level, the pull on equities weakens. If it holds, the exchange spends another month competing against the state for the same money.
An empty market is not a verdict. It is a question about where the money went, and Nigeria answered it in public this week. What remains open is whether the door that just opened is wide enough for the people it was announced for.
Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.
Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com, harmattanintel.substack.com