NASD OTC Indices Rise on Shrinking Turnover as Traded Value Falls to N22m

The NASD over-the-counter market closed October 20, 2026, with both of its headline indices higher on lighter trading, according to data published by the National Association of Securities Dealers and reported by Business Post Nigeria.

The National Securities Index rose 23.42 points, or 0.54 per cent, to 4,355.33, while the National Providers Index for companies that have not yet completed listing formalities added 35.44 points to 2,461.18, a gain of 1.46 per cent. Aggregate market capitalisation on the board rose by N14.06 billion to N2,614,134,603,058.

The activity data moved the other way. Volume of 985,682 units was 30.92 per cent below the previous session, the value of shares traded fell 17.10 per cent to N22,222,823.70, and the number of transactions declined 15.15 per cent to 28. FrieslandCampina WAMCO rose N3.25 to N142.75 and CSCS added N2.79 to N102.79, while Food Concepts fell N23,000 to N2.07 and International Gemstone dropped N1,000 to 52 kobo.

The week before was no more active. NASD recorded 41 transactions across 2,412,000 units worth N49,030,551 for the week ending October 17, with BUA Cement alone accounting for four billion units valued at N8.4 billion, Infracredit for 2.3 billion units worth N6.5 billion and CSCS for 81.9 million units worth N6.0 billion.

Two boards, two different realities

Comparing the same two sessions makes the scale of the over-the-counter board plain. The NGX main board traded N25.92 billion of shares on October 20. The OTC market traded N22.2 million. That is a difference of more than a thousand to one, on a day when the OTC market recorded 28 deals and the main board recorded 33,239. The over-the-counter market is not a smaller version of the exchange; it is a different instrument with a different purpose, and its headline indices should be read accordingly.

The divergence within the OTC session itself is the sharper point. The National Securities Index rose while volume fell almost a third and traded value fell by nearly a fifth. Prices on that board are set by a small number of negotiated transactions, so a single agreement in a security can move an index constituent's quoted price without any meaningful change in the float actually changing hands. The gains recorded by FrieslandCampina WAMCO and CSCS are quote prints; the declines in Food Concepts and International Gemstone, where the entire move was N23,000 and N1,000 respectively, are closer to the arithmetic of an empty order book than to a repricing of value.

Why unit volume flatters the OTC market

The weekly figures illustrate the measurement problem. BUA Cement's four billion units were worth N8.4 billion, which works out at roughly N2.10 per share, while CSCS's 81.9 million units were worth N6.0 billion, or about N73 per share. Counting units rather than value rewards the least expensive securities on the board and can make a thin session look busy: on volume alone, BUA Cement and Infracredit accounted for the overwhelming majority of the week's units, while on value they contributed about N14.9 million of the N49.03 million traded in the week. The honest measure is value, and on value the week was N49.03 million across 41 deals.

That figure is the one that matters for anyone assessing the OTC market's contribution to price discovery. Fifty million naira of turnover a week cannot set prices for a market carrying N2.6 trillion of capitalisation, and it cannot absorb meaningful institutional flow. The board's purpose is to provide a quotation and settlement platform for securities that cannot yet list or cannot yet meet listing requirements, and on that measure it is working. It is not, and was never likely to be, a liquidity venue in its own right.

The providers index is the more informative signal

The 1.46 per cent rise in the National Providers Index, which tracks companies that have not completed listing formalities, is more informative than the 0.54 per cent move in the listed index. Providers are pre-listing companies whose shares trade without the listing obligations, disclosure requirements and liquidity conditions attached to the main board, and their prices therefore reflect what investors will pay for a company before it becomes subject to continuous disclosure.

The recent direction of that index, combined with the picture on the NGX main board in the same session, suggests a market that is willing to pay for exposure that carries less disclosure and less liquidity, and is paying more for it than it is paying for the same sector on the main exchange. The OTC board therefore functions less as a substitute for the exchange and more as a staging area: a place where price discovery happens for assets whose disclosure standard has not yet caught up with their value.

What would change the picture

Three conditions would turn the OTC market into a more significant force in the Nigerian capital market. The first is a steady pipeline of genuine new listings, because the providers index can only expand if the OTC board is being used by companies that will later list rather than by permanently exempt issuers. The second is depth in the quoted securities themselves, because an index of 4,355 points built on N22 million of daily turnover is a number that can be moved by a single counterparty. The third is the transparency of the reporting, which is where the gap in the data deserves attention: the sector's own disclosures and the coverage in circulation do not always present the same breadth for a given session, and reconciliation between headline figures is slow.

None of that makes October 20 insignificant. FrieslandCampina WAMCO and CSCS are substantial unlisted companies, and a market that repriced them upwards in the same session that the main exchange was flat is telling investors something about appetite for the unlisted economy. It is a thin, negotiated market, and its signals are best treated as indicative. The number to keep in mind when reading any OTC headline is N22.2 million, the value that changed hands in a day when the wider Nigerian equity market traded more than a thousand times as much.