Nigerian Stock Market: The Impact of Information Technology
Nigeria’s capital market was not popular during the military regime; that was the time when very few rich people took advantage of the benefits of the stock market. Most Nigerians were unaware of the Nigerian stock market. With the advent of democracy radical changes took place in the field of telecommunications and subsequently a restructuring of stock market operations was carried out.
The big change it brought was live trading on computers and crediting of trades to investors’ account within four days. This revolutionary change brought transparency to the sector. More and more Nigerians at home and abroad became involved in the activities of the Nigerian stock market. Also the use of information technology helped curb the fraudulent schemes of the issuing houses.
The Central Securities Clearing System was introduced, which monitors the activities of the stock exchange in a computerized environment displaying all transactions and thus providing all investors with a fair trading system. With the launch of the Automatic Trading System, the automation of NSM was realized. Subsequently, e-bonus, e-allotment, e-dividend and e-IPO were introduced and implemented. GSM operators had a great effect in increasing the credentials of this sector. In 2006, a telephone alert program was introduced which increased investor confidence in the Nigerian stock exchange commission.
The impact of Information Technology would be incomplete if the effect of the Internet is not mentioned. Internet has added to the transparency and means to invest in stocks as one can use the online facilities to be a part of daily transactions in stock trading. In addition, you can have the complete information about the stock index, the volume and the value of the shares traded.
With so much information technology coming into Nigerian stock market trading and information, all investors need to know how to use it to reap maximum benefits in terms of making the most of it. This is just information to let potential investors know how best to maximize their potential in the Nigerian stock market.
However, the impact of technological advancement has greatly contributed to the development of this unit of the economy, so investors could take advantage of the extreme low drop in share prices to build an investment portfolio in the capital market. largest in Africa, as this complies with the buy low sell high principle that is the anchor of feature trading anywhere in the world.