Following theproposed 2012budget which is already before the National Assembly for ratification, operators (stockbrokers) on the Nigeria capital market have continued to bemoan their fate, just as they said that, if implemented, the stock market growth might further be stagnated.The operators said that, under the proposed budget, equities might not progress beyond the present level, noting that as it appeared, the budget was designed to favor the fixed income market.Recently, investors in the stock market have been engaging in portfolio re-alignment, investing their fund in the bond market and other financial instrument.In an interview with the Tribune Business, the Chief Executive Officer of Lamberth Securities, Mr David Imafidon Adonri said that 'this is so because the deficit component of the budget requiring debt finance has not significantly changed. When added to the expansionary nature of the budget, the monetary authorities may be constrained to adopt more tightening measures to contain inflation within the single digit targeted by the budget.He explained that the end product might be a continuation of the current high interest rate regime which would cause financial assets to continue migration to the debt market at detriment of equities.While contributing, the President of Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr Boniface Okezie said that as a none beneficiary to the direct implementations of the budget, the capital market will be starved of funds when the budget was not fully implemented, thus causing the twin market performance indicators the market capitalisation and the All-Share Index to drop in value.'Government all over the world are known to be the greatest spender in every economy, and once fund is not channelled via development projects especially infrastructure, nothing would get to the capital market.'Major developmental projects in terms of road construction, building houses and power development has helped companies listed in that sub-sector on the Exchange to thrive, while the reverse has always been the case when government in its own wisdom choose not to focus on infrastructural development.It will be recalled that following the avalanche of knocks that greeted the August 2010 change in the leadership of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the latter has given itself a thumb-up for the growth in the financial statement of NSE for the year ended 2010.SEC said the improved figures in the NSE's financial was a further justification, that the action it took in the removal of Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyuike in 2010 over alleged financial impropriety was the best decision for The Exchange.The Commission said that, 'The just released NSE 2010 Annual Report and Accounts justified the Securities & Exchange Commission's regulatory intervention which effected leadership change in the NSE in 2010.
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