Lagos (© 2020 Afriquinfos)- The Lagos Stock Exchange has been experiencing a good period in recent weeks. The economic crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic is clearly not affecting the Nigerian stock exchange. The Lagos Stock Exchange even achieved last Tuesday, one of its best performances in the last 15 years, jumping 5.7%.

The 30 largest portfolios of the Lagos Stock Exchange are doing well despite the novel coronavirus pandemic. This is evidenced by the 5.7% jump made by their index on October 6th. This is the second best performance in the last 15 years.

Paradoxically, if the current pandemic has brought down even more the Nigerian economy which was already in the grip of enormous difficulties, it rather gives color to the world of finance which rubs its hands.

The explanation is simple. A mountain of fresh money was paid to their shareholders by the 5 largest banks in the country. The latter have not experienced any setbacks because of the pandemic. As a result, N37 billion in dividends were distributed. Except that one of the measures put in place by the Nigerian authorities to combat the depreciation of the local currency is the exchange restriction.

As a result, this windfall remained stuck in Lagos and its owners had no choice but to reinvest it by buying shares. Also, since September 22, daily transactions have not fallen below N4 billion on the Lagos Stock Exchange. It is this improvement that led to the performance achieved on October 6th.