Africa’s heavyweight economies in 2025 remained South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and Morocco, measured in nominal US dollar GDP.
Yet the year’s equity market performance tells a very different tale, where agility, reform momentum and currency stability mattered far more than economic size. In a year of global volatility and greatly shifting capital flows, Africa’s top-performing stock exchanges were anything but the largest or most liquid.
By end-December 2025, the largest exchanges by market capitalisation were the JSE, Casablanca Stock Exchange, Nigerian Exchange, Egyptian Exchange and the West African regional exchange, the Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières. Yet none of them topped the performance charts.
The top five performers
Across the continent, 2025 was a breakout year for several smaller and mid-sized exchanges. Based on local currency index returns, the top performers were:
- Malawi Stock Exchange: 247.6%
- Ghana Stock Exchange: 79.4%
- Lusaka Securities Exchange: 67.9%
- Nigerian Exchange: 51.2%
- Nairobi Securities Exchange: 51.4%
These markets outpaced not only their African peers but many global benchmarks. America’s S&P 500 finished up 16.4% and the Nasdaq Composite 20.4%. The UK’s FTSE 100 rose by 21.5%. This underscores a critical truth – in frontier markets, currency stability and reform credibility often matter more than scale.
Markets on steroids
Malawi delivered the continent’s most astonishing performance, with US dollar returns exceeding 247%. A combination of scarcity value, concentrated investor flows and strong domestic participation drove valuations sharply higher. Investing in the market gave some respite to the country’s high-inflation environment, which averaged 28.4% for 2025.
Ghana’s 137.4% US dollar return was powered by broad-based equity rallies and improving macroeconomic visibility. The $3bn credit facility extended by the International Monetary Fund in 2023 led to inflation dropping from almost 54% in January that year to December’s 5.4%. Cedi stabilisation meant US dollar returns significantly outpaced local returns, amplifying foreign investor gains. Ghana’s rally was consistent, with nine months of positive returns indicating restored confidence after years of fiscal strain.
The Lusaka Securities Exchange recorded a dollar gain of 111.7% in 2025, driven by several factors, with economic recovery leading the way. Real GDP growth came to 5.8% for 2025 and strong sectoral performances in mining, energy, agriculture and finance helped lift the market. And with the promise of more IPOs on the horizon, Zambia’s performance reflects structural strengthening, not just cyclical uplift.
In Nigeria, the NGX delivered one of its strongest years in nearly two decades. Market reforms, a recapitalisation of the banking sector, and improving corporate governance and earnings drove the rally. The naira’s partial stabilisation meant dollar returns were robust. Nigeria’s gains were broad but episodic, reflecting the market’s size and liquidity.
And in Kenya, the Nairobi Securities Exchange rebounded sharply, delivering more than 50% in dollar returns. Kenya’s gains weren’t driven by currency appreciation, however, but almost entirely from growth in share prices. Heavyweight stocks, including Safaricom, KCB Group and Kenya Power, led the charge.
The FX factor
Across top performers, one pattern stands out as the single most important determinant of dollar returns, and that is relative currency stability. The extraordinary dollar returns that were posted by Malawi and Ghana, for example, are attributable to contained forex depreciation. The stable Kenyan shilling ensured that equity gains translated directly into hard-currency performance, while Nigeria’s relative forex stabilisation helped amplify gains on its stock market. Zambia’s kwacha became one of the world’s best-performing currencies in 2025, partly due to successful government debt restructuring that lowered perceptions of its sovereign risk, and a jump in copper prices that brought in more hard currency.
How about 2026?
The 2025 winners have continued to have a great run this year, notwithstanding vacillating markets around the world as a result of the conflict in Iran. The Ghana Stock Exchange is up another staggering 46.7%, year to date. The Nigerian exchange has rallied 29% thanks to the conflict’s impact on oil prices. Nairobi continues to perform well, and is 9.1% up, while the Lusaka and Malawi exchanges are holding their own.
This is all in local currency terms, but because the dollar has been broadly steady in these countries for the past three months, more or less, the market returns in dollars are more or less the same, though the Middle East conflict could still play havoc with this stability.
Africa’s capital market trajectory in the year ahead will most probably be shaped by forex credibility, particularly for foreign investors. Momentum in market reforms, especially in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, will probably dictate the levels of further gains, as will the performing of commodity prices like gold and copper.
The big unknown is what happens to monetary policy: if the US Federal Reserve is forced to hike rates this year thanks to an oil price-induced inflation shock, then money flows could reverse out of frontier markets. Rate cuts, on the other hand, would likely increase capital flows to African markets.
Last year’s bull run proved that when reform, stability and credible policy align, the continent’s markets can outperform the world’s biggest benchmarks. Exchanges and regulators must now move with intent to build the environments to match Africa’s economic ambition.
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Top image: Rawpixel/Currency collage.
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