Ubaka Chukwuemeka

Some of us might have started our stock investing journey for the first time in January 2026 because the gains in prior months were really enticing. The last five months have been fantastic as well, until this month that everything has been blurry. My gist this morning is that you should calm down. Do not panic about anything. You most likely have not made a mistake. To help you understand how things work in the equities market, I have shown you a list of some companies (solid coys, by the way) and their closing stock prices every year since 2018. I used 2018 as my base year because: ✑ The trend is sufficient to incorporate different economic cycles ✑ It was the year that foreign investors started to leave Nigeria. Hence, I am showing you the performance of these stocks even in the worst market periods. The least performer there is Nestlé, which has done 2x or 10% per year since 2018. You can see the range of returns across the listed names and across their respective sectors. On average, the combined listed stocks did +36% price gain every year. And this excludes dividends. So what is my point? Do not panic. Do not fret. The red and blurry scenes are part of it, as long as you are invested in very good, solid, and sound companies. You’d be fine. So open that @cowrywise app and keep buying more.

In the entirety of FY 2025, the market created ₦37trn wealth for investors. So far in FY 2026, it has created another ₦22trn wealth for investors (60% of last year's). The info on the table below says that 40 stocks account for 95% of the entire market, and these 40 stocks also account for 95% of the +22% YTD market return. The top 10 stocks account for c.80% of the total market gains so far, with MTNN leading the charge - singularly delivering one-quarter of all the gains (i.e., wealth) in the market. Any name you do not see there is under "others". I am very calm. I am looking at the top 10 names there and pairing them with their fundamentals, and I am super calm. ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻