Stock exchange markets play a critical role in
the economies. They facilitate the movement of capital, often aggregating
resources of small individual savers into sufficiently large capital sums that
can be successfully invested by commercial companies and at the same time
provide opportunities for investors to generate returns. Fluctuation in this
markets influence personal and corporate financial live and economic health of
the country. The debate on random walk hypothesis has been pointed out as
dealing with whether or not security price fully reflect historical prices or
returns information. This study empirically investigates whether or not stock
prices in Nigeria Stock Exchange follow a random walk model so that the price
return cannot be predicted from historical price returns. The study employed
serial correlation tests and runs tests to analyze weekly price returns for
thirty companies whose stocks constitute the component stocks of the Nigeria
Stock Exchange. The scope of the study
consists of 30 component stocks traded on the floor of the Nigerian stock
Exchange. The period covers January 5, 2010 to January 6, 2011. The findings
suggest that random walk model is not a
good description of successive price returns in the Nigeria Stock
exchange, implying that results obtained are contrary to the hypothesis that
successive stock prices are independent random variables and also not
consistent with efficient market hypothesis.
Marketing
research and entrepreneurship development has been conceptually and empirically
analyzed in this study. Marketing research play a dominant role in the
execution and operation of entrepreneurship development. Descriptive and survey
research design was used. The study acquires its data from primary and
secondary sources. Stratified
sampling technique was used to select 200 respondents for the study. Structure
questionnaire were design using 4 point likert scale; strongly Agreed (SA),
Agreed (A), strongly Disagreed (SD) and Disagreed (D), to acquire needed
information concerning study. Two hypotheses were tested using marketing
research and marketing environment (independent) and entrepreneurship
development (dependent). Both independent variables have significance effect on
dependent variable through chi square statistics tools. The study attracts recommendations among are:
both
potential and existing entrepreneur should imbibe the culture of conducting
marketing research. It gives sense of direction in accomplishing their business
goals and objectives and Entrepreneur must scan marketing environment in the
course of executing any venture in a competing environment in order to gain
advantages over others.
This paper intends to look at the
assessment of ATM banking charges, opportunities and challenges. The
opportunities derived from the bank charges include effective banking services
to the customers, relive banks of financial burden of maintaining the ATMs
redress the unhealthy habit of abuse of the use of ATM, help customers to have
financial discipline about the way they spend their money and thus to meet the Nigerian
Payment Vision 20:2020. The challenges of bank charges constitute policy
inconsistency of banking industry long queues outside the banking halls,
multiple of charges on ATM card by banks for insurance renewals of the cards,
SMS charges and sometimes they charge the money before informing the customers.
Finally, summary, conclusions and recommendations are made.
This
paper on Microfinance Banking as a Catalyst for Economic Empowerment reviews the
task and activities of microfinance banks by discussing the past initiatives,
the current policy, and the justifications for establishing MFBs as well as the
implications of the current policy on some economic challenges in the country
within the context of achieving the Vision 20-20-20 agenda. The study is a desk
research which relies basically on secondary data where textbooks, journals and
periodicals were consulted to arrive at the conclusion and recommendations. It
is then concluded that many rural communities do not have functional
microfinance bank, even those that have do not have access to loan facilities
because the microfinance banks are not adequately funded by the government to
cater for the people’s welfare. The writer therefore recommends that though
microfinance policy is good and especially coming at a time the country is
poised to joining the league of the twenty largest economies in the world by
the year 2020, the number of Microfinance Banks has to increase. Also, adequate
and quality social infrastructural facilities should be provided to create viable
microfinance activities as human beings can only be economically active if
there are facilities to work with to enable them perform optimally in their
chosen activities.
Recently, the Microfinance Banks (MFBs) have emerged to seal
the gap between the many formal and informal financial institutions such as
banks, credit unions and moneylender in Nigeria financial institutions. The
foremost objective of MFBs is to alleviate poverty by offering loans and
related financial services to the poor: individuals who are not
self-sufficient. This paper aims to understand the extent to which MFBs have
attained sustainability in Nigeria, a developing country scenario. The paper
examines the sustainability attained by Microfinance banks in Nigeria by way of
measuring their Outreach, Financial sustainability and Welfare impact. The data
was collected with the help of Semi-structured Interviews and Focus Group
Discussions of Micro Finance Banks in twin cities (Ilorin and Offa) of Kwara
state and data collection through secondary sources available in Kwara state on
MFB`s. A descriptive analysis was carried out by using triangle theory of Meyer
and Zeller (2002). It was discovered that the MFBs of Kwara state, Nigeria are
not quite sustainable especially after the reform agenda been introduced by the
apex bank (CBN) in the country.
Many commercial entities especially Banks place high priority on staff
remuneration, this is because the ability of a commercial bank to achieve its
goals at minimal cost will depend mostly on how motivated its employees are, be
it skilled labour, semi-skilled or unskilled labour, all depend or believe
strongly on competitive remuneration. This research work assessed how
compensation policies can be used effectively to enhance productivity in
Commercial banks. The works of other scholars have been reviewed to enable the
researcher take a position. Primary data and other information were used. The
population of the study is 16 members of staff, due to the size of the
population; the entire population shall constitute the sample size. Simple
random sampling technique was adopted in administering the questionnaire. The
study found out that, once members of staff are well compensated above the
industrial/industry average, then, productivity will be enhanced. Another
finding is that, the current remuneration packages of the bank is not
adequately competitive, members of staff expressed displeasure over the
compensation policies. The work concluded by recommending that the bank under
investigation should review its compensation policies in-line with the
practices in other leading banks, that is, compensation policies should be made
more competitive to minimize labour turnover in the bank.
The study examined the adoption of maize production
technologies in Ishielu local government of Ebonyi State Nigeria with the arm
of ascertaining the levels of adoption of maize production technologies and to
determine the socio-economic factors that influenced level of adoption of the
technologies. Primary data were collected using a purposive and simple random
sampling from 50 maize farmers. Descriptive statistics, likert scale and
logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Results showed that majority
of the farmers were within the age bracket of 21–40 (64%) and dominated by male
(56.5%) and majorities are married (56%). About (76.7%) had formal education;
highest level of adoption (80%) was achieved with the use of hybrid maize
varieties. Logistic regression result shows that gender, age, marital status,
educational status, household size, farm size, membership of social group and
annual income were statistically significant at 57 level of probability. High
cost of the technologies was identified as the major constraints to adoption.
It is recommended that subsidies should be provided on fertilizers and
agrochemicals to reduce cost of the technologies to boost production.
Lice infestation amongst
livestock, also known as lousiness is highly prevalent in Nigeria accounting
for about 30% loss in sheep and goats production. A survey on the incidence of louse infestation
amongst sheep and goats was conducted in Maiduguri, Nigeria. A total of 240
sheep and goats were examined revealing an overall incidence of 34(14.2%)
comprising of 127 sheep and 113 goats examined with incidence rates of 28 (22%)
and 6 (5.3%) respectively (p<0.05). Two species of louse were identified
namely Damalinaovis and Linognathusafricanus on sheep with incidence rates
of 22 (78.6%) and 6 (21.4%) respectively (p< 0.05). On goats were Damalinacaprae and Linognathusstenopsis with incidence rates of 2
(33.3%) and 4 (66.7%) respectively (p<0.05). Based on sex, male and female
sheep had incidence rates of 18 (64.3%) and 10 (35.7%) (p<0.05), while male
and female goats had 5 (83.3%) and 1(16.7%) (p<0.05) respectively. Age wise,
young and adult sheep had incidence rates of 22 (78.6%) and 6 (21.4%) (p<0.05),
while young and adult goats had 4(66.7%) and 2(33.3%) (p>0.05) respectively.
The University of Maiduguri Animal farm (UMAF) had a significantly (p<0.05)
lower incidence rates for both sheep 6 (21.4%) and goats, (16.7%) compared with
the Metropolitan livestock market with 22 (78.6%) and 5 (83.3%) for sheep and
goats respectively. Conclusively, lousiness amongst sheep and goats is in Maiduguri,
as such adequate veterinary attention is indicated for their enhanced
production.
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