“Capital markets are the factories of wealth. When nations build them well, prosperity follows the citizens” – Ndubuisi Ekekwe

The central thesis of the lecture is that every decade in Nigeria’s economic life has been defined by a dominant innovation arc, and the 2030s will belong to the capital market—driven by regulatory modernization, technology, and a new class of assets enabled by the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025.

The lecture begins by tracing Nigeria’s transformation timelines. The 1990s delivered the new-generation banks, which used VSAT-powered connectivity to outcompete the legacy institutions by making banking “location-agnostic.” In the 2000s, GSM operators democratized voice telephony and created a mass market for mobile communications. By the 2010s, the telcos became internet utilities, enabling fintech, content distribution, on-demand banking, and mobile learning. Today, in the 2020s, the nation is witnessing a Cambrian explosion of digital applications in  payments, logistics, mobility, lending, and software services, driven by young innovators combining digital primitives to solve market frictions.

Upon these pillars, the next frontier of economic transformation will happen. Yes, the 2030s will be the Decade of Capital Market Expansion, unlocking Nigeria’s trapped wealth and enabling large-scale asset formation, fractionalization, liquidity creation, and investment democratization. The transformational trigger for this shift is the Investment and Securities Act of 2025, described as the most consequential legislation in Nigeria’s business landscape in the last 25 years. ISA 2025 provides the legal foundation for new asset classes, digital securities, derivatives, commodities trading modernization, private market infrastructure, and blockchain-based market utilities. With this enabling architecture, Nigeria can now build a multi-layered capital market ecosystem comparable to NASDAQ, NYSE, JSE, and LSE.

The lecture notes that South Africa’s stock market exceeds $1 trillion, while Nigeria’s remains under $70 billion, not because Nigeria lacks economic activity but because Nigeria has not historically created many investable asset classes. With ISA 2025, everything from mortgages, royalties, commodities, energy credits, insurance risk pools, municipal bonds, infrastructure notes, agricultural futures, and digital asset-backed securities can become part of the national portfolio.

Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe explains that wealth is a product of asset formation, not merely entrepreneurial energy. Without a robust capital market, capital cannot scale; without liquidity, innovation cannot compound. The 2030s will therefore witness the rise of new financial market infrastructures: blockchain clearing systems, digital depositories, all-hours trading, regulated private markets, stablecoin-backed settlements, and transparent derivatives platforms that will derisk sectors like agriculture, housing, and manufacturing.

He highlights how global exchanges operate diverse product lines like from ETFs, REITs, ABS, MBS, commodities futures, FX options, carbon credits, structured notes, ADRs/GDRs, municipal securities, and more. Nigeria currently offers only a fraction. The 2030s will change that.

The lecture concludes by urging Nigerian innovators, professionals, policymakers, and investors to prepare for a new era where finance becomes the fuel for national reconstruction. With the right institutions, Nigeria’s capital market can unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in domestic and diaspora capital, deepen industrial capacity, fund infrastructure, and accelerate national development. The graduates are encouraged to see themselves not only as business builders but also as participants in a historic redesign of Nigeria’s financial destiny as we prepare for a Decade of Capital Market Abundance.

The core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, indicated a lower-than-expected annual rate of 2.8% in September.

This long-awaited data point, released by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), strongly reinforces expectations that the Fed will opt to lower interest rates at its monetary policy meeting next week.

The report’s release was significantly delayed—originally scheduled for late October—due to the government shutdown, which had halted all data collection and economic reporting for over 40 days. Despite the data being backward-looking, it is the final piece of inflation evidence the FOMC will receive before making its rate decision, granting it immense significance.

PCE Readings and The Fed’s Rationale

The September core PCE annual rate of 2.8% was a slight deceleration from 2.9% in August and was 0.1 percentage point below the Dow Jones consensus forecast. The monthly core PCE rise of 0.2% was in line with expectations.

Why the Fed Prefers PCE Over CPI

Federal Reserve officials use PCE as their primary policy tool for inflation targeting (2% long-term goal) over the better-known Consumer Price Index (CPI) for several key methodological reasons.

The PCE index’s weighting of goods and services is updated monthly, which better captures how consumers substitute cheaper goods for more expensive ones when prices rise. The CPI only updates its weights annually.

PCE is a more comprehensive measure because it includes expenditures made on behalf of consumers by third parties, such as employer-provided healthcare and government programs. The CPI only tracks out-of-pocket expenses.

PCE places a greater emphasis on healthcare and a lower emphasis on housing costs compared to the CPI, which is often seen as providing a clearer picture of underlying inflationary pressures.

The details of the report revealed a divergence in price pressures between goods and services. Goods prices rose 0.5% on the month, accelerating sharply. This is largely attributed to the continued impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs working their way through the economy.

Services prices were up just 0.2% (a step down from 0.3% in August). The main contributors to the services increase were health care and housing, and utilities (led by rent).

Food prices rose 0.4%, while energy prices were up 1.7%, driving the slight acceleration in the Headline PCE rate.

The data also showed that Personal Income rose 0.4% (a beat over the forecast), while consumer spending was up 0.3% (a slight miss). Real consumption, when adjusted for inflation, was flat for the month, which, alongside the unchanged personal savings rate of 4.7%, signals a loss of momentum in household demand after a resilient summer.

Path to a Rate Cut

The softer Core PCE data, particularly the annual decline from 2.9% to 2.8%, strengthens the position of the FOMC faction that supports additional rate cuts to head off potential weakness in the labor market.

The odds of the Fed cutting the benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point when it meets next week held firm at 87.2%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

While labor market indicators show a slow pace of hiring, a separate report on Friday revealed consumer sentiment improved more than expected to start December (the University of Michigan survey rose to 53.3). Crucially, consumer one-year inflation expectations dropped to 4.1%, easing policymakers’ concerns about the public’s view of future prices.

The combination of cooling core inflation, slowing momentum in consumer spending, and contained long-term inflation expectations sets a clear stage for the Fed to deliver a widely anticipated rate reduction next week.