Investment One Financial Services Ltd on Friday embarked on investor education through youth financial inclusion aimed at increasing retail investors participation on the nation’s bourse.
Mrs Abimbola Afolabi-Ajayi, the company’s Executive Director, made the disclosure at its Young Investors’ Forum 2014, tagged “Promoting Capital Market Literacy and Participation Among Undergraduate Students in Nigeria,” in Lagos.
Afolabi-Ajayi said the aim of the investor education was to inform youths and undergraduates on the rudiments of the capital market and to increase retail investor participation.
She said that the young investors forum was designed to instill investment culture among young undergraduates in the country.
Afolabi-Ajayi said that investment was driven by information and “it is when you know how the market works through education that you will be keen to invest”.
She said the forum was part of the company’s effort at ensuring that young scholars were appropriately tutored about the nitty-gritty of early investment which would help to add values to their lives.
She said that the transfer of knowledge would also facilitate poverty alleviation in the country.
Also speaking, Mrs Taba Peteside, General Manager, Quotations & Listings, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, noted that the stock market was for everybody and had no age and price limitations.
Delivering a paper titled “Capital Market Investment and Its Inherent Opportunities for Wealth Creation in Life”, Peterside said the stock market was a platform for raising funds and wealth creation.
“It is completely trivial for students to have the perception of quick money syndrome which has in one way or the other jeopardised the bright future of some young people.
“It is very significant for young undergraduates to start investing for the future and the best form of investment for them should be the long-term investment, not the short-term investment,” she said.
According to her, short-term investment will only work when there are huge funds in place.
She, however, said that young investors should get on with diversification of portfolios and long-term investment.
Mrs Ore Sofekun, the Managing Director, Kakawa Asset Management, a subsidiary of Investment One, said that early knowledge of investment would ensure successful life among youths in future.
Sofekun said that they had several mutual funds designed for youths to promote investment culture among them.
(NAN)
