How to read a result without being fooled

Why results mislead honest readers

Every NGX result starts life as a PDF filing on the NGX portal, and filings are not built to one template. The same document can carry tables in different units, two period columns side by side, and two sets of accounts. Press summaries lift figures quickly, so one misread column becomes a wrong headline within hours. These are the six traps we check before any figure reaches the earnings board. Learn them once and you can audit any result yourself.

Trap 1: the units above the column

Filings state money in thousands (₦’000), millions (₦m) or full naira, and the unit can change between tables inside the same document. A profit line reading 40,690,000 under a ₦’000 heading is ₦40.69 billion. Read the same line as plain naira and the company shrinks a thousandfold; read a millions table as thousands and it grows a thousandfold instead.

The check: never copy a figure without the unit printed above its column. On Nairaview, every figure is converted to billions and the filing itself is linked on the row, so you can always trace a number back to its source table.

Trap 2: the quarter vs the year so far

Nigerian filings print two profit columns side by side: the standalone three months and the cumulative period, six months at half year and nine months at Q3. The cumulative column is almost always the bigger number, and coverage does mix them: reporting on one Q3 result put the three-month loss and the nine-month loss in adjacent lines as if they were the same thing. They were not; one covered three times the trading of the other.

The check: match the label before the number. Q3 alone means three months; 9M means nine. Compare only like with like, this period against the same period last year. It is why the earnings board keeps separate leaderboards for three-month and nine-month results.

Trap 3: group figures vs company figures

A listed holding company reports two sets of accounts: group, consolidated across every subsidiary, and company, the listed entity alone. For a bank holdco, group profit takes in the bank plus the pensions, asset management and other arms; the company column can be a fraction of it. Two honest reports can quote two very different profits from the same filing, one from each set of accounts.

The check: default to group, and notice which set a headline used. Nairaview records group figures unless only company figures exist, and flags it on the record when that happens.

Trap 4: EPS in kobo, not naira

Earnings per share is printed in kobo in many filings and in naira in others. EPS of 1,858 kobo is ₦18.58 per share. EPS shown as (329) kobo is a loss of ₦3.29 per share: the brackets mean negative. Read kobo as naira and a company looks a hundred times more profitable per share than it is.

The check: find the unit beside basic earnings per share before comparing EPS across companies. Nairaview converts every EPS to naira and keeps the source unit on record.

Trap 5: unaudited numbers can move

Quarterly results are unaudited, which means provisional. The audited full year can revise them, and a later filing can restate the comparative figures it published a year earlier. Banks add a second layer: their audited half-year accounts need Central Bank approval after board approval, which is why several big banks’ audited H1 2026 results landed weeks past deadline, on formal extensions.

The check: when an audited figure replaces an unaudited one, the audited figure governs. On Nairaview stock pages a replaced figure stays on record as superseded, and a restatement feeding a valuation is flagged, never silently swapped.

Trap 6: the year that was not a year

Sometimes the period itself changes length. Guinness Nigeria moved its year-end, so the full year it reported for 2025 covers 18 months: revenue of ₦730.81bn and profit of ₦41.16bn earned over a year and a half. Set against a normal 12-month year, those figures flatter the company, and no honest growth rate can be computed from them.

The check: read the dates the period covers, not just its label. Nairaview labels that year 18M on the Guinness stock page and leaves it out of trailing twelve month calculations entirely.

The 30-second checklist

• Units: is the table in ₦’000, ₦m, or full naira?
• Period: three months or cumulative, and compared with the same period last year?
• Whose: group or company?
• EPS: kobo or naira, and are brackets hiding a loss?
• Status: unaudited or audited, and has an audited version replaced it since?
• Length: does the period cover the months its label implies?

Run those six and most headlines survive. Where one does not, you have usually found the real story. Every figure on the earnings board is checked against the filing itself before it is published, with the filing linked so you can run the same checks. If a Nairaview figure and the filing ever disagree, the filing wins.

New to results season? Start with how to read a stock page, then watch the board as the Q3 filings land.