BusinessDay Nigeria BusinessDay 18 Jun 2018

businessday market monitor Commodities NSE Brent Oil Biggest Gainer $75.88 OKOMUOIL N90.40 Cocoa Biggest Loser 10.24pc SEPLAT N754.9 -1.83pc 38,928.02 US $2,433.00 Everdon Bureau De Change Bitcoin Buy ₦2,374,225.04 -3.22pc Powered by news you can trust I * *MONDAY 18 JUNE 2018 I vol. 15, no 77 I N300 Sell $-N 360.00 362.00 £-N 479.00 489.00 €-N 416.00 426.00 @ FMDQ Close Foreign Exchange Market Spot $/N I&E FX Window 361.07 CBN Official Rate 305.85 3M 6M 5 Years 10 Years 20 Years 0.00 11.20 -0.18 12.83 -0.00% 13.16% 0.00% 13.46% 0.00% 13.56% g Stocks on path to historical sell-off before elections SOBECHUKWU EZE & EMEKA UCHEAGA G F rom its obscure years of trading at less than a kobo to 1 CFA Franc in 1986, the CFA Franc has risen tremendously in value and now trades at around 54 kobo to 1 CFA Franc. In the last 5 years, the CFA Franc is up roughly 80 percent against the Naira. A similar Continues on page 37 Continues on page 4 Inside P. 39 R-L: Oliver Andrews, chief investment officer, Africa Finance Corporation; Andrew Alli, president/chief ex- ecutive officer, Africa Finance Corporation, honoured with  excellence in finance award, and Christopher Moore, publisher, EMEA Finance, at the EMEA 2017 Champions of Finance Award  recently in London. Aircraft towing persists at Nigerian airports as poor infrastructure hampers operations IFEOMA OKEKE World Cup Result Costa Rica 0 - Serbia Germany 0 - Mexico Brazil 1 1 1 -Switzerland 1 INSIGHT CFA Franc racing to parity with naira Emeka Ucheaga eneral elections due in 2019, and a slight buildup of pressure against the currency (naira) should push Nigerian equities lower in the second half (H2) of the year if history is anything to go by. The stock market is up just 1.79 percent year to date. This performance pales against the market performance of 16 per- cent in the first half of 2017. Stocks peaked this year at 45,092.83 points on January 19, and have since suffered a correc- Long wait for Lagos-Badagry Expressway reconstruction fgn bonds Treasury Bills I n addition to the numerous charges airline pay to service providers, they have contin- ued to pay ground handling companies over N985million annually to tow their aircraft into the aerobridge , which is the point to disembark passengers after landing. BusinessDay’s checks show that in other countries, airlines taxy their aircraft into the aero- bridge but in Nigeria, airlines pay to taxy their aircraft to the bridge. A business man close to the government alleged that he had personally volunteered to assist the concerned agencies fix the problem but they have refused because of the amount they realise from towing aircraft into the bridge on a daily basis. Experts say that this develop- Continues on page 37 Why Money Market funds are attracting large inflows OGHOGHO EDOSOMWAN & CYNTHIA IKWUETOGHU M oney market funds are open-ended mutual funds that invest in shor t- term debt securities such as treasury bills, certificate of de- posits, and commercial paper. They are usually managed by skilled fund managers who are competent to optimize share- holder returns by arranging a Continues on page 4