Foremost capital market conglomerate, Meristem Securities, recently launched its economic outlook report for the second half of the year. The outlook report titled ‘Unmasking Value in a Scourge’ thoroughly analyzed the position of the global and domestic economy, with a comprehensive focus on trends and activities within various economic sectors that could help avert a prolonged global recession. The outlook highlighted in depth the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant consequences to capital flow reversals, external reserves, exchange rate, inflation and other macroeconomic variables as it relates to the domestic economy.
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic mid-March, Meristem had offered forward guidance to investors on strategic investment prospects that existed within the capital market, emphasizing that pocket of opportunities existed within the fixed income environment. In this new outlook report, ‘Unmasking value in a scourge’ further extends the scope on valuable strategies that investors could adopt to realize value across various asset classes. Speaking on the report, Deputy Managing Director, Meristem Securities, Sulaiman Adedokun, said “The Meristem research outlook has been able to unearth profound insights for our clients, investors and the general public, who seek to revise their investment strategies for the remaining part of the year. We congratulate our efficient team of analysts who have been able to delineate every section of global and domestic economies to offer a refreshing view of the investment landscape and thus predict a course of action amid a pandemic that has exhausted some global and economic superpowers’.
Responding to questions from journalists about the outlook for various sectors of the Nigerian economy, Sulaiman Adedokun commented ‘The business models of some companies have benefitted from the outbreak of the pandemic for example healthcare, telecoms and technology stocks saw their share price appreciate while firms operating in sectors like oil & gas, aviation and hospitality were the worst hit. Notwithstanding, our outlook for the telecoms sector is largely positive, given that the implementation of social distancing and remote working policies have accelerated the adoption of technological solutions across the country. We expect this to positively impact data revenue in subsequent periods. However, the growth in topline will be tempered by weaker voice revenue (which contributes c.65% to revenue) due to shrinking subscriber wallets, along with growing adoption of cheaper VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) alternatives like WhatsApp calls.
Meristem offers a wide a range of services that cater to all classes of investors regardless of the stage in their financial journey, services like stockbroking, wealth management and financial advisory help clients to access various opportunities within the capital and via Meritrade, an online stockbroking platform. Investors can trade stocks from anywhere around the world as well as better manage their shares and enjoy access to the most exclusive market research.
Meristem for the past 16 years has been consistent in value creation and innovation within the capital market space. In 2018, the Nigerian stock exchange awarded Meristem as the best digital broker of the year. In 2018 also, Meristem became the first Nigerian asset management firm to attain compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) by the CFA Institute. Still in 2018, Meristem received two nominations from Business Day, for the best Money market Fund and Equity Fund. In 2017, Meristem handled the single largest trade in the history of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
The firm has remained a leading player in Nigeria’s competitive investment market with a solid reputation as a highly professional and client-centric firm, helping to take their clients farther.
The full report can be downloaded at https://research.meristemng.com/
