Nigeria’s stock market has added N57.14tn in value this year, lifting market capitalisation from N99.38tn at the end of 2025 to about N156.52tn by August 17. The NGX All-Share Index is up 57.5 percent. But the headline gain conceals a more important feature of the market. Just 24 companies account for 74.8 percent of total NGX equities market capitalisation, representing about N117tn.
That concentration means the market’s overall performance is being shaped disproportionately by a relatively small group of large companies. For investors, the implication is not that smaller stocks should be ignored, but that the index provides an incomplete picture of portfolio performance.
The investment question is valuation
Large companies dominate the NGX for understandable reasons. Businesses such as MTN Nigeria, Airtel Africa, Dangote Cement, BUA Foods, BUA Cement, Seplat Energy and the major banks have scale, established operations and the ability to attract substantial institutional capital. But market dominance does not make a stock automatically attractive.
A good company can be a bad investment if its share price already discounts too much of its future growth. After a 57.5 percent market advance, that distinction becomes particularly important. Investors need to examine whether earnings and cash generation are growing sufficiently to support higher valuations.
